Hmmm, looks like I might be falling in love with another country and her people… I’ve just had the great
opportunity of teaching medical students for a week with an organisation called
PRIME (Partnerships in Medical Education).
The uniting theme was that of ‘whole person medicine’ i.e.
when you value the patient as a person rather than just the condition they
bring with them, you dramatically improve quality of healthcare, diagnosis,
treatment relevance, concordance and compliance. The concept is drawn from the foundational biblical principle in love and service of God, we value and
have compassion for our neighbour, regardless of situation.
As a result, I led a diverse range of lectures and seminars on topics
such as:
- Breaking bad news to patients
- Identifying and managing depression
- Stigma in healthcare; including alcohol and homosexuality
- Evidence based medicine in practice
- Corruption and accountability in healthcare
These sessions were complemented by further teaching from a colleague
specialising in Breast and Thyroid surgery from the UK. The students were engaged and had many
questions from our teaching sessions! I
am thankful for this and learnt a great deal from them too. I even managed to get a few laughs and at one
point a round of applause – something greatly unexpected.
During the afternoons I had
chance to learn from a series of sessions aimed at teachers within
the medical school on methods of teaching medical students. Again the PRIME principles of ‘whole person
medicine’ were the foundation – whole student teaching?!?! I think around 20 different teaching means
and styles were covered, all applied with a mixture of theory, practice and
discussion. I again learnt a great deal
from the chance to work with several wise and experienced colleagues from the
UK, being privileged to share in their thoughts, preparations and actions.
And as for Romania, her culture and people… The warmness of the welcome was pretty
extreme! We were very well looked after
and supported. I’ve made some good
friends and had chance to experience a culture unlike those I’ve been to before
in Eastern Europe. The food is good and
language pleasant to listen to (and sometimes even comprehensible). As the name suggests, it’s latin-based –
perhaps you can guess the meanings of: bună seara, merci, and adio?
The last thing to perhaps say, it that Transylvania is not a scary
place (apart from the all-enveloping fog!).
Give it a try!
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