Discovering stigma through recovery teaching.

OBJECTIVE

From the perspective of the tutor, course coordinators and a clinical supervisor, we describe and reflect on our observations of innovative service-user led tutorials on recovery that were delivered to final year medical students as part of their psychiatric module.

CONCLUSIONS

Much to our surprise, and in contrast to observations elsewhere during the module, students openly expressed blatant stigmatising attitudes in the tutorials on recovery, particularly after spending time with inpatient services. More specifically, they were pessimistic about the possibility of recovery and they struggled to accept the service user status of the recovery tutor. This prompted us to reflect on what and how we teach psychiatry.