CRADLE goes to ANZAHPE 2018

The 2018 conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators (ANZAHPE) was held in Hobart, Tasmania from 1-4 July. The conference brings together educators, clinicians, academics, and students who are interested in furthering health professional education.

This year’s theme was Sustainability, which was aptly reflected in three brilliant keynotes. Firstly, Associate Professor Katherine Barraclough outlined an argument for health professionals to be concerned with environmental sustainability. Secondly, Professor Lara Varpio talked about sustainability in the way we approach and solve problems in healthcare education. Finally, Professor Rakesh Patel demonstrated how he successfully implemented a sustainable model of education within a clinical environment. All three keynotes were highly energising and motivating.

https://twitter.com/DrJoannaT/status/1014030384458133504

While I was an author on two conference presentations – a poster with Dr Charlotte Denniston titled “‘Two different fields’: supporting higher degree research students in health professions education’, and an oral presentation titled “What should we teach the teachers? Learning priorities of clinical supervisors” with A/Prof. Margaret Bearman, Dr Fiona Kent, Prof. Debra Nestel, Prof. Elizabeth Molloy, and Ms Vicki Edouard – I was also attending the conference as a member of the ANZAHPE Committee of Management, looking after digital communications during the conference.

What this actually means is that I spent most of the conference on Twitter, retweeting good tweets, replying to others, and generally promoting the use of Twitter to instigate online conversations. This was a great motivator for me to attend a wide range of sessions. I learned about selection procedures, from entry into medicine using CASPer – developed in Canada to assess personal and professional characteristics through a Situational Judgement Test and also used at Deakin for entry to teaching courses – to factors influencing performance in surgical training assessments. I also had the pleasure of chairing a poster session around peer assessment and collaborative learning, and I got a sneak peek at a forthcoming book, Learning and Teaching in Clinical Contexts, edited by Clare Delany and Elizabeth Molloy, with contributions from several CRADLE team members.

Though I ended up with the conference cold, I had a great time reconnecting with colleagues, finding out what research they were currently conducting, and generally enjoying frosty Hobart!



Category list: Conferences, Reflections


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