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16. Grazer Konferenz – Qualität der Lehre: Curriculum planning and assessment

19. - 21. April 2012, Timisoara, Romania

Curriculum planing and assessment. An overview of the 16th Graz Conference on medical education

Welcome/Begrüßung

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  • corresponding author Richard März - Medical University of Vienna, Department of Medical Education, Vienna, Austria

16. Grazer Konferenz – Qualität der Lehre 2012 - Curriculum planning and assessment. Timisoara, Romania, 19.-21.04.2012. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2012. Doc12grako01

doi: 10.3205/12grako01, urn:nbn:de:0183-12grako019

Published: September 5, 2012

© 2012 März.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Welcome/Begrüßung

Since this was the first time a conference on medical education was held in Rumania, it provided us with a good opportunity to go back to our roots. Curriculum planning and assessment were centre stage at our first conferences but it has been a while since we took an in-depth look at these topics.

Curriculum planning should not be thought of as a one-time occurrence – it must be an ongoing process. It is no coincidence that the concept of the “Kern Cycle” is at the centre of strategic thinking in Medical Education [1]: The “end” of a reform process – evaluation and feedback – is the natural beginning of a new cycle of reform. This becomes self-evident once you engage with the subject!

The topics of both plenary lectures and workshops were chosen to address these central issues. Some improvisation proved necessary to deal with last-minute changes. Isabelle Richard gave her presentation via Skype, since a skiing misadventure prevented travel. However, both presentation and topic proved totally engaging so that no void was felt. Martin Fischer had to cancel his presentation due to last-minute troubles back home. David Taylor acted graciously as a substitute and thus we heard about lessons from curriculum reform in Liverpool rather than Munich and Witten-Herdecke.

Saturday morning was devoted to curriculum reform projects of Rumanian universities. Austrian experiences with accreditation processes were also on the program, since all Rumanian universities will be undergoing similar inspections from the outside.

A poster party and a lot of networking time rounded out the event. The detailed program as well as the presentations given can be found at: http://grazconference.at.


References

1.
Kern DE, Thomas PA, Howard DM, Bass EB. Curriculum Development For Medical Education - A Six Step Approach. Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 1998.