MPS Retreat at WCMC-Q

The one-day event on April 20th was led by Carol Storey-Johnson, M.D., senior associate dean for education and associate professor of clinical medicine, and Lyuba Konopasek, M.D., director of the Medicine, Society and Patients I) course, and assistant professor of pediatrics.

The course will be an important part of the first year curriculum of the Medical Program, which opens at WCMC-Q in September.

The twelve participants in the retreat, led by Dr. Salih Al-Marri, director of the HMC's department of family and community medicine, took part in sessions designed to examine a wide range of topics, from approaches to adult education to teaching in the setting of the doctor's office, or clinic.

The responsibilities of the faculty in the MPS I course will include leading seminars at the Medical College; or, as office preceptors, taking students into their clinics at primary health centers in Doha.

There is a network of such primary health care facilities in residential areas of the capital city, and in centers of population elsewhere in Qatar.

The idea behind April's workshop was to bring together many of those who will work with students during the course, to discuss teaching techniques, methods of evaluation and ways of giving feedback, while also highlighting some of the challenges of teaching in the clinical setting.

Participation was active and engaged even though English was the second language for the group. Dr. Storey-Johnson commented: we thought it worked very well: people were really engaging. I was very impressed - they participated and communicated well.

The MPS I and II courses, which run throughout the first two years of the Medical Program, aim to expose students at Weill Cornell to patient care from the moment they begin the Medical Program.

The courses form an important part of the curriculum introduced at WCMC-NY in 1996 that is to be replicated at Weill Cornell in Qatar, starting in September 2004.

They are designed to gradually equip students with the skills, and understanding of the wider issues of clinical practice, that will enable them to move comfortably into the clinical years of their medical education.

In this way, they are prepared for the clinical clerkships and experiences of the third and fourth years, as well as for their future career as practicing physicians. Dr. Konopasek explained: ¿we talk about teaching the students knowledge, skills and attitudes, and developing those. The students really want specific skills that they can take away with them and apply to their practice.î

And it prepares them in ways that the old system of medical education did not. As Dr. Storey-Johnson commented: ¿we are really creating a very different kind of medical student now, one who can just step in to the clinical arena and move forward with learning the disciplines of medicine.