Civic Starter

Cathy Roets' initiative aims to reshape how neurodivergent healthcare students prepare for their first clinical placements. The goal is simple but ambitious: to build a learning framework that reflects the lived experience of neurodivergent students and gives them the confidence, agency and preparation needed before they step into hospitals, clinics and community settings.

By working with neurodivergent students and the charities that advocate for them, the research follows a Public and Patient Involvement model, ensuring that the curriculum, methodology and ethical foundations are co-created from the outset. That early collaboration is essential for psychological safety and trust to be built on all sides.

The work is also a response the more than 500 Trinity healthcare students who registered in 2024/2025 with a disability, including 193 with a primary neurodevelopmental diagnosis. The true number may be higher, given the financial and logistical barriers to formal assessment.

Using Universal Design for Learning principles, the project explores how immersive, simulation-based education can bridge gaps that neurodivergent students often face. Simulation allows learners to build professional identities, make mistakes without fear, and experience clinical scenarios before encountering real patients. It fosters equity by redistributing power, inviting students to shape the curriculum, and helping novices form the intuitive connections that experienced clinicians take for granted.

Although the initial focus is neurodivergent learners, the long-term aim is universality: a learning environment that supports every healthcare student on their learning path during their professional life.