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Teaching with love, learning by heart: Reflection of PMAC 2014
«...if I can influence their heart, I can influence their mind, then hands and feet follow…» In the last week of this January, the bay of Pattaya has become a global gathering of world leading health professionals, educators, researchers, policy makers and most importantly students where IFMSA has been represented by Joško Miše, Roopa Dhatt, Renzo Guinto, Halit Onur, Walter Mogeni, Leo Heng, Godspower Esogban, Farhan Mar’i Isa, Michalina Drejza, Agostinho Sousa, Pedro Miranda and Yameen Hamid. The Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2014 with the theme «Transformative Learning for Health Equity» was held from 27th to 31st January 2014 in Thailand being hosted by Prince Mahidol Award Foundation, the Thai Ministry of Public Health, Mahidol University and co-hosted by World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Rockefeller Foundation and China Medical Board.
Agostinho Sousa
IFMSA LO for Medical Education issues
lme@ifmsa.org
Yameen Hamid
NMO: BMSS-Bangladesh SCOME RA for Asia Pacific ra.scome.asiapacific@ gmail.com
in 2004, the WHO World Health Report 2006 sparked a series of global initiatives including the advent of the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA), Asia Pacific Network for Health Education Reform (ANHER), Asia Pacific Alliance on HRH (AAAH), USAID CapacityPlus Project, PEPFAR’s MEPI-NEPI, and others. First Global Forum on HRH was held in Kampala, Uganda in 2008 with the call for action to reform health workforce. Second Global Forum on HRH was conducted by PMAC 2011 fostering the global momentum on human resources for health, followed by Third Global Forum on HRH in November 2013 that was held in Brazil, resulting in a political declaration where the governments renewed their commitments towards Universal Health Coverage. This 5 days long conference covered 23 side meetings, 5 field site visits, 7 keynote address, 5 plenary sessions, 21 parallel sessions, attended by 543 participants from 62 countries and supported by 80 staffs and 65 rapporteurs.
Through the number of plenary and parallel sessions of this leading global conference on health policy, several discussion, dialogue and debate were held to reorganize the strategy and provide concrete evidence for action plan for health professionals’ education reform to meet the challenge of health equity.
Background
In 1910, Flexner report led to the integration of modern science into medical curricula at university-based medical schools. The reforms equipped medical professionals with scientific knowledge which contributed to the doubling of life span during the 20th century. For recent years there is an increase in global consensus that the education of health professionals is failing to keep pace with the scientific, social and economic changes transforming the healthcare environment. Starting with the Joint Learning Initiative www.ifmsa.org
The term ‘Health Equity’ being more utopian to discuss and work on though can be achievable to an extent based upon various changing context e.g. domestic and international demographic transition, globalization, changing lifestyle of community and health professionals, socio-economic transition, shift of disease burden, emerging health care needs, technological advancement in treatment, international labor market dynamics, social accountability of health workforce, expenditure of health care etc. There is a simultaneous requirement of health care reform and education system reform on the basis of these changing contexts to rally towards Universal Health Coverage. During the conference was underlined the need to have a new way of thinking for the 21st Century Health Workers. These health workers must have deep humanistic values, be able to based their work in evidence, understand the social dynamics of the global society, work and communicate in inter-professional teams and be accountable to the needs of the population. However, to achieve this goal we have to proceed to instructional and institutional reforms! As examples of instructional reforms, we must support an inclusive access of students to health care education and support them during the education period, in order they can provide a better service to their communities and promote a cur-