Lecturers at the Faculty of Medicine were introduced to new teaching methods
Lecturers of the Faculty of Medicine at Vilnius University (VU) learned about new ways to teach medicine. Prof Harm Peters, representative of Charite, Head of the Dieter Scheffner's Medical Training Centre (Germany) and Viktor Riklefs, vice-rector for studies at Karaganda State Medical University (Kazakhstan) came to Vilnius to share their knowledge and experience with the academic staff.
Prof Harm Peters introduced advanced competency-based teaching methods. In his report "Clinical Teaching Methods – Competence-Based Medical Education" he highlighted the close link between medical education and developing health care. During the training session, he not only introduced the model, but also performed several practical exercises with the lecturers.
"I am proud that I am a doctor and I will always be a doctor, even though I have been teaching others for many years. I was taught by the excellent standards of classical education. But times are changing. And we need to train our students in a new way, taking into account all the challenges of the modern world and the new requirements for this profession.” Prof Peters said.
"We will not become better teachers in a day, but it is enough to realize that there are more advanced teaching methods in the world that we could use. This training encourages us to expand our knowledge, say goodbye to outdated standards, and keep up with the progressive teaching trends of modern times”, – prof. Algirdas Utkus stated.
Viktor Riklefs in his presentation "Virtual Patients, Simulation Technologies, and Problem Training – Factors Facilitating Clinical Decision–Making Skills" demonstrated some specific approaches to medicine training based on modern technology.
"Traditional medical training is gradually being replaced by problem training. In the Simulation centre, students have the opportunity to analyse various cases of patients' health problems virtually. A group of 5-10 students with a tutor virtually examine different medical cases. Together they discuss the details, raise hypotheses. After that, students work independently at home with additional material. At the next meeting, they discuss and summarise their conclusions. In this process, the tutor is a guide and an advisor. Medical training based on this specific learning technique is very popular not only in Kazakhstan, but also worldwide,” Dr Viktor Riklefs said. The lecturers, participating in the training session, were given the chance to log into the website of KSMU Simulation Centre and perform practical tasks by themselves. This helped them to understand the benefits of simulation training.
There are plans to establish a Simulation Centre in the Science Centre that will be built in the “Santara” valley to improve scientific research at the Faculty of Medicine.