Short description

Regulatory bodies around the world have recommended that professionalism should be an explicit component of both undergraduate and postgraduate curricula of health professions education. However, although there can be overlaps or core areas of professionalism, there is no universal definition for professionalism. It has repeatedly shown to be sensitive to cultural and socio-economic factors.  Furthermore, there can be differences between healthcare professions in conceptualising professionalism. However, conceptualising professionalism at an institutional level will help identify the common areas and profession-based differences, which can be used to develop a professional framework at institutional level. This framework in turn can be used as the basis of teaching, learning and assessment of professionalism with a better insight, transparently and consistency.

The course aims to help participants approach professionalism in an educational approach.   

 

Intended learning outcomes

By the end of the short course, participants would be able to:

• conceptualise professionalism in the context of IMU with the consensus of academia and students
• define its attributes to formulate an educational framework for fostering professionalism
• identify appropriate strategies of course development, teaching / learning and assessment in fostering professionalism

 

Audience

Teachers who are involved or interested fostering professionalism in the context of health professions education.

 

Structure

The course is organised with two-day face-to-face sessions and a self-directed task in between.

Face-to-face session 1 (full day): (Consists of plenary and group work)

• Conceptualising professionalism to a given educational context
• Identifying the attributes of professionalism
• Proposing appropriate teaching / learning methods

(Facilitators and peers will provide feedback on identified methods of teaching / learning.)

Self-directed task:

Identifying attributes of professionalism relevant to the educational institute / study programme of the participant through and appropriate consensus method

Face-to-face session 2 (full day): (Consists of plenary and group work)

• Presentation of attributes of professionalism identified for participants own context
• Identifying methods of professionalism assessment as appropriate to participant’s own context 

 

Assessment

The course participants will be assessed with two submissions by email submitted within two weeks from the last face-to-face session:

• A reflective report on identifying the attributes of professionalism, teaching / learning methods and assessment strategies with an acceptable quality (1200 - 1500 words

A certificate of participation will be issued for participants who attend all the face-to-face sessions.

A certificate of completion will be awarded to participants who successfully complete assignment described above within the stipulated time.

 

Resource persons

Prof Madawa Chandratilake

Madawa Chandratilake graduated as a medical doctor from Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka with MBBS honours. He completed his Masters in Medical Education with distinction and PhD in medical education from University of Dundee, Scotland, UK. Currently, he is a Professor in Medical Education at IMU Centre for Education, International Medical University, Malaysia and Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. He is also an External Tutor at Centre for Medical Education (CME), University of Dundee, UK and Postgraduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM), University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has supervised over 30 Masters and doctoral students in health professions education.  He has lead the designing of medical education courses and curricula for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. As an international medical education consultant, he has extended his consultancy services in medical education to many countries including UK, Indonesia, Pakistan and Oman. He has conducted many workshops on professionalism, assessment, curriculum development, teaching learning and many other medical education topics. He is an associate editor of two medical education journals.

Professionalism related research is his primary interest. He is a principal investigator of international research group on professionalism. He is also involved in research on clinical reasoning, simulation and the use of modern technology, such as virtual reality, leap motion and hologram in medical education. He co-founded the interest group, ‘Studies in Ethical and Clinical Reasoning in Asia’ (SECRA), and a developed a multi-disciplinary technological collaboration at University of Kelaniya to develop hybrid models of clinical simulators. He is the head of UNESCO bio-ethics unit Sri Lanka. He has published his research papers extensively in well-reputed academic journals and presented them in national and international conferences. He has authored many book chapters in medical education

Prof Vishna Devi Nadarajah

Vishna Devi Nadarajah is currently, Professor in the School of Medicine and Pro-Vice Chancellor, Education at the International Medical University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Biochemistry from the University of Malaya (1994) and obtained her PhD at the University of Cambridge in biochemistry (2000). She is also a graduate of the Masters in Health Professions Education from Maastricht University (2014).  She has published and presented research papers in both biomedical sciences and medical education, supervises research students and reviews for indexed and international journals. Her areas of research for health professions education is in Faculty development, Assessment and Innovative Teaching Learning methods. Vishna has shared her experience and expertise in health professions education via invitations to speak at conferences, conducting faculty development workshops, consultancies and collaborative research.

Her additional international contributions include being a member of editorial board of 2 international journals, Ottawa 2020 committee and ASPIRE committee (Inspirational approaches to healthcare professions educations).

 A/Professor Gnanajothy Ponnudurai

Gnanajothy Ponnudurai graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Biochemistry in 1998 and subsequently obtained her MSc in 1991 and PhD in 1995 from the University of Malaya. She joined the International Medical University in 1996. She is currently the Head of Biochemistry Department at the School of Medicine, IMU.   She is also the coordinator for the Assessment of Professionalism, Ethics and Performance in clinical placements in the School of Medicine.

Prior to her current appointment she was the Associate Dean of Medical Sciences in the School of Medicine (2012-2016), Head of Human Biology division and Programme Coordinator of Biomedical science in IMU. She was the project leader for the team that developed the outcome based curriculum for Biomedical science and implemented the programme in IMU.  She has also published and presented research papers in both biomedical sciences and medical education.

 

Fees

RM 800