Medical Deans descend on UQ

In the first forum of its kind, on Tuesday, 24 May 2011 The University of Queensland will host over 30 Medical Deans and senior staff from 15 Universities in Australia and New Zealand, plus Australian Medical Council and ACER representatives, to discuss a national assessment of medical students.

UQ and Monash University, along with the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), have been granted over by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) for a project to develop foundations for a national assessment that monitors the outcomes of later year medical students in Australia.

While quality of undergraduate medical education in Australia is very high, it can be variable, and that, for a variety of reasons, the outcomes of medical education can be variable, explains The University of Queensland’s Dean of Medicine and Head of School, Professor David Wilkinson.

“A national assessment, or exam, that all medical students undertake, could provide some additional reassurance to the public that a certain standard has been met,” he said.

“It is rare and exciting opportunity to bring together Deans and other senior medical education academics from many medical schools across Australia, to discuss and debate these important issues. Of course we are delighted to host our many colleagues at UQ, and specifically the Herston campus.”

Professor Cees Van der Vleuten, Chair, Department of Educational Development and Research and Director School of Health Professions Education at Maastricht University, Netherlands will facilitate the Forum.

Professor Van der Vleuten has been a key figure in establishing a European-wide approach to consistent assessment between medical schools, and therefore offers a global and globally collaborative approach to this topic.

The Forum will explore options for how quality-focused, like-minded Schools who want to work together to investigate whether they can share significant amounts of assessment material, learn from each other through that process, raise their standards together, and benchmark their performance in mutually acceptable ways.

MEDIA: Brian Mallon, Marketing and Communication Officer, School of Medicine. Tel: 07 3365 5254 / 0403621109 b.mallon@uq.edu.au