The Face-to-Face (F2F) session for the Master of Health Professions Education (MHPE) 2024, Semester II, was successfully held at the National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS), PWD Campus from August 19 to August 22, 2024. This five-day session, part of NUMS' hybrid MHPE program, provided students an essential opportunity to engage directly with the NUMS Department of Health Professions Education (NDHPE) faculty and prominent external experts.
This semester's F2F session focused on three key courses: Program Evaluation (PRE), Assessment of Learning (AoL), and Scholarship of Discovery in Education (SDE).
The event commenced with a warm welcome and semester overview by Prof. Ayesha Rauf, Head of NDHPE. Students presented their group tasks from the previous semester for faculty feedback, fostering a collaborative learning environment. The NUMS faculty, including Dr. Nadia Shabnam and Dr. Fozia Fatima, delivered highly interactive sessions on critical topics such as scale reliability, sample size calculations, and validation processes.
Day two was dedicated to Program Evaluation (PRE), featuring lectures by Dr. Naushaba and Dr. Hanaa Fatima, who covered the basics of program evaluation. A highlight of the day was the joint session by Professor Susie Schofield and Dr. Qabir ul Abdullah from the University of Dundee, who spoke on "Developing a Quality Assurance Culture for Sustainable Medical Education." Dr. Imdad Ali from the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council contributed valuable insights on global and national challenges in standards and accreditation.
Day three shifted focus to the Scholarship of Discovery in Education (SDE). Dr. Fozia Fatima introduced the course, followed by a stimulating session from Dr. Muhammad Imran Qureshi, Founding Director of CONNECTING ASIA and Lecturer at Teesside University, UK, on the role of AI-powered tools in research.
The final day, August 22, was dedicated to the Assessment of Learning (AoL). Prof. Rukhsana Ayub, Course Director, introduced the course, emphasizing the interpretation of qualitative and quantitative assessment data. Guest speakers included Prof. Amina Ahmad, Dean at CMH Lahore Medical College, and Dr. Naveed Yousaf, CEO of the Aga Khan University Examination Board. Prof. Ahmad discussed the importance of data measurement and theory application, while Dr. Yousaf elaborated on standard setting and decision-making processes.
On the last day, Prof. Rukhsana Ayub concluded the session by summarizing the rich academic interactions that took place and shared a note of thanks to appreciate all the guest speakers, NUMS faculty, and the session coordination team, including the Semester Coordinator, Dr Adeela Bashir, and Mehmood Arshad and Shahzad Ashraf.
This F2F session reinforced the MHPE program's commitment to fostering a robust academic environment where students can learn from national and international experts while advancing their skills in health professions education.
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Climate change has been stated as one of the biggest existential threats the world is facing today1. World Economic Forum in its Global Risk Report, 2019 warned that in relation to the environment “the world is most clearly sleepwalking into catastrophe”2.
In view of these threats, it is increasingly being realised that medical institutions need to respond to growing environmental challenges and now a concept of environmental accountability within the framework of social accountability of medical schools has been introduced3. NUMS Department of Health Professions Education in collaboration with Adm. Directorate, DT Directorate and Heads of Departments took an initiative to conduct a session to raise awareness amongst its faculty and staff and propose plan a to make NUMS a Zero Waste Campus.
A talk was arranged at NUMS PWD Campus by the department facilitated by Dr Adeela Bashir faculty NDHPE on January 20, 2021.
Faculty from all the NUMS departments actively participated in this interactive session complying with COVID 19 precautions. Participants suggestions were taken and volunteers for taking the initiative forward, were sought.
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An innovative blended learning program customized to develop knowledge, skills and attitudes required for all scholarly academic activities that cut across boundaries of all health professions.
The program is unique with a distant learning component blended with face to face contact sessions for hands-on activities, experiential learning and assessments. To facilitate faculty of NUMS institutions which are present in multiple cities, the face to face contact sessions are conducted at multiple venues. Distance learning is spaced between two face to face contact sessions. Moodle® software, customized for the program, is used by the students and faculty for access to learning material, discussion and assessment of each course.
CHPE-2019 conducted from March- August for 129 participants. Face to face sessions were conducted at six venues for five days each at Rawalpindi, Quetta, Multan and Lahore.
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CHPE 2020 (spring) for 250 participants was launched on December 31, 2019 and is currently ongoing. Face to face sessions have been conducted for 5 groups of participants at Rawalpindi, 2 for Mardan, and one each at Multan, Karachi, Quetta, and Lahore centres.
CHPE 2020 Fall will be conducted between September 2020 to March 2021, and will be announced soon.
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Many affiliated NUMS institutes are located in different regions of Pakistan where a large number of civilians, as well as uniformed faculty with no access to quality training programs. A comprehensive program has been developed and implemented for our geographically diverse faculty.
Since 2018, an ongoing series of workshops have so far trained more than 300 participants from all the Constituent & Affiliated Colleges and Specialty Institutes of NUMS at Rawalpindi, Wah, Bahawalpur, Multan, Quetta and Karachi.
The following workshops are offered:
Three-day series of workshops on Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment
Post Hoc analysis
HPE team is also contributing to the NEB exam being conducted by NUMS for PM&DC. Since 2017 three cycles of exam catering to over thirty thousand Pakistani graduates of foreign universities have been held for PM&DC. HPE team is actively involved in moderation and paper selection for these exams based on evidence-based quality assurance processes for written as well as performance exams. Our team has conducted a 15-station OSCE for over three thousand students in the last two years.
Fully cognizant of the significance of transformational research, multiple multi center, interventional educational research projects are being undertaken by NDHPE faculty. The faculty is actively engaged in research in the domains of their interest.
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