Inaugural Ronald Harden Lecture: `The Next Wave in Medical Education – Four Necessary Transformations’
Published On Tue 18 Mar 2014 by Roddy Isles
The University of Dundee has initiated an annual lecture in the name of Professor Ronald Harden OBE, a world renowned expert in medical education and former Director of the Centre for Medical Education in Dundee.
Professor Harden himself will present the inaugural lecture on Thursday March 20th at the University’s College of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing.
In it he will describe what he sees as the next wave of medical education, describing four major areas where transformational change may be effected.
“Medical education has not kept pace with advances in medicine, changes in healthcare delivery systems, expectation of the public and developments in educational thinking and technology,” said Professor Harden.
“The emphasis in medical education has been on attempts to improve a fundamentally outdated and outmoded educational structure, rather than on exploring and implementing new approaches.
“The next wave in medical education will see important changes. There will be a move to ‘just-for-you learning’ and ‘just-in-time’ learning with an adaptive learning programme personalised to the learner’s individual needs. We will see increasing collaboration nationally and internationally between schools in the delivery of their training programmes with the advantages of unbundling the curriculum and outsourcing elements becoming apparent. The segregation of undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education into three silos will disappear with a seamless continuum of education in place. Finally, the importance of the teacher and excellence, scholarship and professionalism in teaching will be recognised.
“Such fundamental changes in medical education, while not easy, are possible. The future is ours for the choosing if we can imagine the impossible isn’t and have the courage to ignite transformation from vision to reality.”
Professor Harden was previously Undergraduate Teaching Dean, Postgraduate Dean and Director of the Centre for Medical Education in Dundee.
He is Editor of Medical Teacher, the international journal of education in the health sciences, and has been recognised by the National Board of Medical Examiners in the USA, by the Kellogg Foundation, the award of the Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education (widely recognised as being equivalent to a Nobel Prize for medical education) and with an OBE for his services to medical education.
“I am honoured that the University has chosen to initiate this lecture in my name and delighted to be asked to deliver the first one,” said Professor Harden.
Professor John Connell, Vice-Principal and Head of the College of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing, said, “Ronald Harden has had a long and distinguished career which has helped establish the name of Dundee’s Medical School around the world.”
The Ronald Harden Inaugural Lecture takes place at 5.30 pm on Thursday March 20th, in the Gannochy Lecture Theatre at the Medical School’s Ninewells campus.
A dinner in his honour will be held on the RRS Discovery later the same evening.
Roddy Isles
Head of Press
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN.
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E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk