Humanising Healthcare’s Conversation Café: transforming medical education

Humanising Healthcare’s Conversation Café: transforming medical education

February 25, 2026 · 34 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the Conversation Café program aimed at transforming medical education by connecting students with individuals who have lived experience of addiction and recovery.

On this month’s podcast we spoke to Dr Hugo Jobst, Dr Seonaid Anderson, and Allan Houston from Humanising Healthcare about their Conversation Café programme, which brings medical students together with people who have lived experience of addiction and recovery to change the culture of addiction medicine. Through small, round-table discussions, students hear directly from people in recovery, explore the roots of addiction, and reflect on how healthcare professionals can better support harm reduction and long-term recovery. “Historically in medical education the roots of addiction have not really been discussed in any meaningful or effective way. You know they’ll say, ‘adverse childhood experiences increase your risk of addiction’, but you haven’t actually heard from anyone who’s actually had those adverse childhood experiences. So with this, students get a true experience by hearing a story and being able to connect with someone who has gone through that.” - Dr Hugo Jobst If you’re interested in setting up a Conversation Café at your institution, contact: humanisinghealthcare@gmail.com You can also see how the Cafés run in the following short film: This is a public episode. If you…

People in this episode

Guests: Dr Hugo Jobst, Dr Seonaid Anderson, Allan Houston

Topics covered

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Humanising Healthcare

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