From July 4 to July 8, Professor Barbara Power and Professor James W. T. Chan from the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine were selected as the school's training teachers of PSD (Physician skills development) courses in Shanghai. They have brought one-week training courses for teachers in Joint Medical School, attracting more than 140 participants including head and backbone teachers of the PSD courses.

Since the inception of Shanghai - Ottawa Joint Medical School, in order to ensure the smooth implementation of the new curriculum and the quality of teaching, it has organized teacher training programs since January in 2015. Every year Canadian professors have been periodically invited to Shanghai to carry out teacher training courses such as teaching philosophy, teaching methods, evaluation mode and etc., associated with the implementation of new curriculum. The PSD training program is a main event in the curriculum system of the Joint Medical School, penetrating the entire pre-internship which is designed to develop clinical skills of medical students. This course is similar to the domestic diagnostic courses and others that fully implemented small class teaching. In addition to the conventional history inquiry, physical examination and other content training courses for medical students, it also joined the part of the doctor-patient communication skills, which is relatively infrequent at domestic medical schools.

This time the training courses focused on the requirements of PSD courses, which are close to the clinical teaching practice, including the doctor-patient communication, medical history inquiry, physical examination, group training, course evaluation and feedback and other content. In the form of training, in addition to the form of lectures for the relevant course outlines for on-site teachers, it also carried out grouped training, each consisting of 5-6 teachers to arrange teaching demonstration of medical examination in standardized patients, which makes the classroom become lively and interesting. Classroom atmosphere was very warm, and the participants of teachers said that such joint training and exchange programs would provide great help for preparation the latter courses in Joint Medical School.

In addition, the course also arranged a special training session for teachers of community teaching, to help teachers of general medicine education better adapt to the teaching content and form in Joint Medical School. In a lively discussion, the two sides reached a preliminary teaching model consensus. After the one-week training, the Joint Medical School would like to provide more practical and referential teaching resources and information in future training courses based on the teachers’ feedback, rendering the teacher training courses become strong support and solid backing for the preparatory process of teachers teaching in Joint Medicine School.

(Correspondent Aiping Su and Yi Li / Translator Weiwei Zhang)