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On July 6, HMU received the Progress
Report based on the recent WFME Advisor Site Visit. Following the Pilot
Accreditation of HMU Basic Medical Education Referenced according WFME
Global Standards last May, the advisors returned to HMU for a Review Visit
last month. They concluded that the University had begun to make change in
all the areas identified for improvement. Significant developments include:
(a)
The
University has given priority to renewal of teachers’ ideas about medical
education, and has invested significantly in the training of faculty and
management staff.
(b)
From
having no community-based medical teaching, the University has established
agreements with nine community-based facilities. This coincides with
Chinese Government policies and programs on promoting urban community
health services.
(c)
Teaching
hours have been cut, and the total number of courses in both the seven-year
and the five-year program has been reduced.
(d)
The
University has adopted case-based learning in a number of areas, and has
won a teaching award for its medical ethics cased-based teaching.
(e)
Fifty
teachers have been trained in problem-based learning (PBL) methods – by
visits overseas and visits to Harbin
by international experts. A pilot PBL program has been introduced for
volunteer students in the second year of the seven-year medical course.
(f)
The
Teaching Guidance Committee has been reconstituted and strengthened. Students
have been added to the Committee, and student input to the 2006 revision of
the curriculum was actively sought.
(g)
The
University successfully introduced an OSCE examination in 2006 for the five-year
program. It has also considered the weightings given to in-course or
in-training assessment and final summative assessments.
While the WFME advisors gave the
University their positive comments, they also gave their constructive
advice for improvement. Their suggestions include:
The faculty and students of the University should
keep up their high enthusiasm and motivation exhibited in the first year of
the medical education reform. The University may explore other forms of
student and patient-centred active learning that
are less resource intensive than “pure” PBL and equally desirable. Core
teaching hours and summative assessment need to be reduced with more time
for formative assessment. The Dean’s office needs adequate resources to
carry out its reform mandate.
The team concluded that HMU had made a
very satisfactory start in its response to the initial review in May 2006. Progress
at HMU has been exceptionally rapid and comprehensive. When a national
system of formal accreditation is established in China, the team recommends that
HMU be revisited and that the initial WFME advisor report of 2006 and the
2007 progress report be taken into account in determining its accreditation
status.
In the letter to President Yang Baofeng, the advisors hope that their report is useful
to the University for its medical education reform.
The two WFME visits offered the faculty and
students of the University opportunities to learn about the WFME Global
Standards. Some areas to be improved have been identified against these
standards. “Harbin Medical
University (HMU) is the first Chinese medical school to be formally
assessed according to WFME Global Standards for Basic Medical Education.” This
has greatly spread the fame of the University at home and abroad. HMU will
deepen its medical education reform, maintain its leading role in the renovation
and reform of medical education in China, and try to catch up with
advanced medical education in the world.
(Yang Libin) |