The University of Health Sciences (UHS), in collaboration with University of Liverpool, UK, is organising a week-long educational extravaganza for the medical faculty and students of 34 medical and dental colleges of the province, which will get underway from March 28.
The week-long educational extravaganza also includes a three-day International Symposium on Medical Education (ISME-2010), titled as "Medical Education: A Roller Coaster Ride", which will be held from March 29 to 31. The objective of the symposium is to provide an opportunity to discuss, at length, the issues and current trends in medical education, and the challenges and opportunities posed to medical teachers in their quest to provide quality medical education to today's medical students to become the competent and caring doctors of tomorrow.
The topic of the symposium are: (i) Traditional vs Problem-based Learning in medical teaching, and (ii) Professionalism vs Commercialism in medical practice. Medical educationalists from United Kingdom, Scotland, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, UAE and Pakistan will present their papers in the symposium. Professor Dr Arif Rashid Khawaja is the co-ordinator of the symposium. The symposium will be preceded by a series of four workshops, to be facilitated by international experts, on Sunday, March 28.
This includes: (i) "Learning Skills", to be facilitated by Hazel Howden-Leach from University of Liverpool, UK, (ii) "Development of Continuing Medical Education Programme in Pakistan", to be facilitated by Dr Gohar Wajid from Ministry of Health, UAE (iii) "Medical Teaching", to be facilitated by Dr Simon Cole from Aberdeen University, Scotland, and (iv) "Attitude towards Problem-based Learning and observing the education process", which will be facilitated by Professor Robert Skafie of University of Liverpool, UK. During the symposium, there will be another four workshops on curriculum development, developing integrated module, simulated vs standardised patient and Problem-based assessment.
Dr Umar Ali Khan of Riphah University Rawalpindi, Professor Alam Sher Malik from University of Technology Malaysia, Professor Amir Zaman of Fatima Jinnah Medical College Lahore, and Dr Junaid Sarfraz Khan Controller of Examination, UHS, will conduct these workshops respectively.
Experts from University of Liverpool, UK, will also conduct a three-day post symposium workshop on "Innovations in Medical Education: What is the way forward", from April 01 to 03. This workshop will be facilitated by Hazel Howden Leach, consultant Academic Developer, and Dr Ian Willis from Centre of Lifelong Learning, University of Liverpool.
The most important feature of this academic week is a colloquium on medical education in which students of affiliated medical colleges will be involved as stake- holders so that they could decide for themselves about their future mode of teaching and learning. The colloquium will be held on March 31.