Rendez-Vous Day 2
Day 2 at Rendez-Vous 2012 – I attended a couple of PeArLs this morning, including one delivered by Dr Gayle Roberton from Flinders Uni (who seem to be EVERYWHERE at the conference) and one from our very own Prof Geoff Solarsh. I was interested to hear others’ suggestions as to how distributed medical education programs can work best, eg. how do we ensure that students undertaking LICs obtain equivalent learning experiences to those that undertake rotational placements. The resounding sentiment that emerged from this PeArL was that we should celebrate the diversity that occurs when implementing the one curriculum in variable ways across our different sites. Do we need all things to be equal? Is equity actually a “furfie” by people who “don’t get it”?
UWA delivers a totally different learning experience in each one of their sites across a widely dispersed geographical area and students and teachers seem to embrace this and this model works very well in the west. In addition, UWA rural clinical school graduates are highly sought after by local hospitals as they are seen to be more practically ready for internship.
Rather than trying to make our unique learning experiences the same as those being undertaken by students in metro locations we need to: demonstrate that the programs we are offering ARE indeed different; demonstrate WHY students undertaking these programs will do better than their block rotational counter-parts; develop an understanding and appreciation within our students about a different way of learning; and perhaps let’s put in place a mechanism whereby students can share their experiences with each other, eg. an online feedback “blog”.
Lunch was a sit-down affair once more…am slowly watching the kilos piling on – followed by three plenary speakers: Dr Agnes Soucat, Director for Human Development for the African Development Bank based in Tunisia; Dr Elsie Kiguli-Malwadde, Director of the Medical Education Partnership Initiative Coordinating Center at the African Centre for Global Health and Social Transformation, based in Uganda; and Dr Gretchen Roedde, Family Physician and part of the Haileybury Family Health Team based in Haileybury, Ontario.
Each of these speakers provided some confronting statistics, particularly around challenges being faced in vulnerably communities and the shocking truth about the state of global maternal health. These are but just a few examples:
16 pregnant women die daily in Uganda;
The maternal mortality ratio has doubled in the last 10 years in Papua New Guinea; and
In every hour of every day, one woman dies related to pregnancy in Tanzania.
Oral sessions which I attended today centred around Student Experiences and Perspectives and included presentations from Harvard Medical School, the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine, University of Minnesota, Flinders University and the NOSM.
It was interesting to note that when character profiles of students opting for longitudinal integrated clerkships were looked at, the following traits emerged: students were self directed, novelty-seeking, reward dependent, persistent and cooperative.
Tonight it was time for some fine dining and dancing at the Gala Dinner and Dance held in the Ballroom at the Valhalla Inn. Once the formalities were over, a lovely meal was enjoyed by all and then we were entertained by “The Sensational Hot Rods” who perform great music from the 50’s era sung with perfect six piece doo wop harmonies. No one (not even our Head of School) could resist getting up for a dance. Prof David Campbell was also spotted in the distance dancing up a storm! Just as well there were a few doctors in the house – I spotted a couple of would be Elvis’ who looked like they may have needed some doctoring sooner rather than later…….
On to day 3 tomorrow……
Laura Major