Workshop on the Assessment of Global Minimum Essential Requirements - "GMER"
June 27-29, 2002
Beijing, People's Republic of ChinaA two-day IIME Workshop was organized at the North Garden Hotel in Beijing and was attended by 41 persons from 8 cooperating Medical Schools and the representatives of both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Health. The purpose of the meeting was to brief participants on the scope of the project with a focus on the assessment tools and procedures that will be used for the evaluation of students' competencies, as well as to discuss the framework and content of the forthcoming activities.
The Workshop was opened by Dr. M. Roy Schwarz, President of the China Medical Board, who summarized the background of the IIME Project and outlined the expectations of the meeting. Dr. Andrzej Wojtczak, IIME Director, then presented the report on Phase I of the Project and the Map of the Road for Phase II. Dr. David Stern, Chairman of the Task Force for Assessment, followed with a detailed outline of the methods and procedures to be used in the evaluation of outcome competencies envisaged in the "GMER" documents. The general discussion clarified various concerns and was followed by the small group discussions moderated by the Chinese experts. Their results were presented during plenary sessions.
A consensus was reached to perform the students' competencies evaluation at the point of graduating exams. It was agreed to use the standardized assessment procedures and methods of internationally recognized quality in all participating schools. The evaluation will permit indications as to the degree of achievement of the learning objectives seen in the GMER document. The outcomes will be used to identify relative strengths, gaps and weaknesses of the educational experiences provided by the schools. It will lead to remedial activities and curricular changes. The consequent re-evaluation will show how the level of success of the remedial activities. The following three groups of the assessment tools will be used: Multiple-Choice Questions exam - MCQ, Objective Structured Clinical Examination - OSCE, and Observer Ratings / Logbooks. It was also considered to use "Reflective Exercise" as an optional assessment for some of GMER items.
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| Advisory group at Workshop on the Assessment of the GMER | |
The representatives of the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Education strongly underlined the commitment of both Ministries to supporting the implementation of the project. It was considered a road to improvement of the quality of medical education not only in these eight medical schools but also on a national scale.
The next activity will be the "Workshop on the Development of the Assessment Tools", hosted by the Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University on October 21-24, 2002. It will review the content of the above mentioned assessment modules and indicate steps leading to proper preparation of tools used in evaluation.
Institute for International Medical Education.
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