The MEFANET 2016 conference will include attractive plenary sessions including invited speakers' lectures.
Plenary session invited speakers
Andrzej Kononowicz
Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Poland / Karolinska institutet (Stockholm)
Profile: His scientific activities are focused on using information technologies for acquisition and transfer of medical knowledge. Andrzej specialises in the field of e-learning, namely virtual patients, in which teaching is based on computer simulation of a surgical procedure by a health care professional (a doctor or a nurse). He has rich experience in the field of medical informatics acquired during research stays in Switzerland and Germany. He co-organised first two international conferences on virtual patients in Krakow and London. He defended his PhD thesis in biocybernetics and biomedical engineering in Krakow. Since February 2012 he is connected to the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm in the field of development of new virtual patients models that use simulation of physiological processes and mechanisms of disease origin and progression.
Virtual Patients – Where are we? Where are we going?
Abstract: Despite much excitement around virtual patients, the concept of using computers to simulate real-world clinical scenarios is all but new, and can be dated back to the late 1960s. However, what has recently changed is the attitude of the mainstream medical community, who have ceased to regard the use of this technology as idiosyncrasy, but instead as a viable learning tool available to modern universities. Many myths have formed around the concept regarding its efficacy, cost and practicalities of use, but also its future. The goal of this presentation is to shed more light on the current status of virtual patient implementations, and give an overview of current developments. The views will be presented from multiple angles: 1) an ongoing Cochrane collaboration systematic literature review of virtual patient simulations and former qualitative evidence summaries of the presenter; 2) experiences collected while incorporating virtual patients in edX Massive Open Online Courses at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm; but also 3) the perspective of Jagiellonian University Medical College in Kraków, where virtual patients are being incorporated in the health professions curricula for several years and form an important component of the developing medical simulation centre.
Luke Woodham
St George's University of London
Profile: Luke Woodham is a Technical Developer in the e-Learning Unit at St George's, University of London, working on Virtual Patients in medical education. He has been involved with projects to explore the use of Virtual Patients on mobile devices and in virtual worlds, and to implement these resources in the curriculum. He is also a member of the MedBiquitous Virtual Patient working group, developing technical standards for use in medical education.
Moving into MOOCs: what does this mean for health education?
Recently, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have become the subject of increasing debate in education. Offering the possibility for teaching to reach thousands of users at a time, a number of competing platforms offering a huge variety of courses have emerged, and have been enthusiastically adopted by a large number of institutions. However, the role of MOOCs in medicine and healthcare education is less clear; their limited provision for formal assessment and the absence of face-to-face interaction has led some to question their value. This presentation will consider the recent developments being made by MOOC providers to address these criticisms, and reflect upon the work in delivering healthcare-related MOOCs at St George’s, University of London. It will explore the importance of obtaining professional recognition for completing MOOCS, and touch upon the possibilities for fostering greater levels of interactivity and engagement with participants; projects such as the WAVES (Widening Access to Virtual Educational Scenarios) network aim to demonstrate that pedagogically-proven tools can enhance the teaching and learning opportunities available to learners and educators.