Celebrating Health Sciences Education Conference 2023

Dr Charle Viljoen is a keen teacher and enjoys working on educational innovations. He strongly supports research in medical education, as he believes this would address contemporary educational challenges and support Evidence-Based Education. Research in medical education enhances teaching methods, improves curricular design, encourages innovation and the adoption of new technologies and approaches. The aim of improved teaching and training is to guarantee competence and ultimately to ensure the delivery of better medical care. His academic career milestones include accolades in both the clinical and education field.

Charle is a cardiologist and specialist physician in Cape Town, South Africa. He obtained the degree MBChB (with distinction) from the University of Pretoria, with the highest marks in the final year of study. After completing his masters degree in Internal Medicine at the University of Cape Town, he continued training in Cardiology at Groote Schuur Hospital. Charle has a special interest in arrhythmias and heart failure, and supervises several doctoral, masters and honours research projects at UCT. In 2018 he was awarded the International Resident Leadership Award by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is currently doing a fellowship in Electrophysiology.

For his doctoral research, Dr Viljoen evaluated the impact of novel teaching methods in electrocardiography. Under the guidance of his PhD supervisors, and with the support of a collaboration between the Divisions of Cardiology and Clinical Skills at UCT, Charle created an online ECG learning platform (ecgonline.uct.ac.za). Since the launch of the first version of ECG ONLINE, the web application has been accessed by more than two thousand students. The online ECG curriculum is based on the training priorities suggested by a Delphi study that Dr Viljoen conducted for his PhD at UCT. Moreover, the use of the web application as part of a blended learning strategy was shown to be more effective for the acquisition and retention of ECG competence.

Charle is also the principal author and developer of the ECG reference app, ECG APPtitude (available for free from the App Store and Google Play). Since its original launch in 2017, the ECG app has been downloaded and used by over 30,000 users worldwide. The new version of this teaching app offers the educational content in English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. During a study on the utility of mobile learning, it was showed that using ECG APPtitude required less time than searching the Internet and ensured better ECG diagnostic accuracy.

I came to education by default. With a clinical background in musculoskeletal and orthopaedics physiotherapy, I was at first asked by the Physiotherapy Division to assist with the teaching and clinical education in these fields. Since then, I have never left!

My journey in the field of education started when I won my first recognition at a FHS Health Science Education Research Day in 2011, presenting work on how clinical educators were being incorporated into clinical teaching in Physiotherapy. This passion for clinical education and how we could improve the experiences for UG students has shaped my focus through my career. I completed a MPhil in Higher Education Studies through CHED in 2012. I was fortunate to be able to complete a SAFRI fellowship between 2014 and 2015, exploring as a project aspect of the clinical training curriculum linked to community placements. During this period as a clinical platform convenor, I was able to facilitate structured changes in the clinical training of physio students. I was co-lead on a TDG Faculty development project in the DHRS between 2014-2018 which looked at specific training for clinical educators across the DHRS in guiding clinical reasoning in students. This project was presented as a poster at AMEE and won the FHS Health Science research day award in 2017.

Leaving my clinical education role, I moved back into classroom teaching in 2018, taking up a full-time position of lecturer in the Division of Physiotherapy. I am currently the Undergraduate Programme convenor for the Division. However, my own educational journey continues: I was part of the FHS’ first ELF (Educational Leadership Fellowship) programme in 2022 and am currently using this platform to look at how our curriculum prepares graduates for practice in the SA context.

I was honoured to receive the Faculty’s Excellence in Teaching award in 2019, usually these are celebrated in the following year but COVID prevented that. The upside was that the award carried a monetary grant which came in very handy to develop online learning materials for the remote T&L which we were required to do. I was able to lead and fund the development of an open resource on how to complete and use the partogram (a labour monitoring tool) and gravidogram (a pregnancy growth monitoring tool). The challenges posed by COVID to the teaching and learning enterprise was mitigated by harnessing the learnings over the preceding years formally and informally, the encouragement of colleagues and the IT savvy students (who can be worthwhile contributors to the teaching enterprise).

I currently serve as the course convenor for the Obstetrics component of the Perinatal Health block in Semester 6 of the MBChB programme. I am the course convenor for the Year 4 Obstetrics course. I also convene the Nelson Mandela-Fidel Castro training programme in the Faculty of Health Sciences. In my time as a convenor and teacher in the faculty I have had the opportunity to complete a MPhil in Health Professions Education and SAFRI fellowship. Both these have opened my mind to the possibilities in creating/developing/strengthening the learning experiences of students. In this the patient, who is also a de facto teacher, becomes centred with the student in the learning encounter where my role is to facilitate these to be meaningful to both the patient and student. Contextualising the environment in which the student will be practicing as an intern and community service medical officer is crucial in preparing them for the world outside of the Western Cape. Providing context also creates a less vacuous approach to learning as they are led on a path that shows the value of the knowledge and skills they are developing in serving their patients.

I found my niche in the development of teaching emergency obstetric care in simulated environments following a stint as the technical lead for implementation of and national trainer in the Essential Steps in Managing Obstetric Emergencies (ESMOE) programme. The role has given me an opportunity to gain insights into the varied conditions of facilities and ability of staff across all the provinces in the country. These insights inform my course design to ensure that the students develop the critical knowledge, skills and attitudes to best serve our population.

I am currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Human Biology with an interest in curriculum design and academic support programmes. In 2007, I obtained my PhD in Medical Biochemistry from UCT. Following my PhD, I took up a postdoctoral position at the University of Rennes, France, and in 2009 returned to South Africa to take up a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Human Biology at UCT. In 2012, I was awarded the highly competitive Hasso Plattner Foundation research officer position which afforded me the opportunity to develop as an independent researcher. This enabled me to successfully compete for a lecturing position within the Department of Human Biology in 2014 which is when my passion to be an educator was ignited.

My educational philosophy is geared towards promoting student-centred learning in which I see my role as a facilitator. Using different interactive teaching and learning strategies I aim to encourage rational discourse and critical reflection. I am committed towards inclusive education where curricula are designed to accommodate the needs of students of diverse backgrounds rather than forcing students to adapt to a fixed curriculum. Over the years as an educator, I have introduced and developed innovative teaching and learning strategies to promote student success and development. My research has focused on the conceptualisation and development of peer-led tutorial programmes, an Anatomy and Physiology baseline assessment for all first year’s students and formative learning tools to enhance students’ understanding of anatomy and physiology.

In 2015, my passion and research interests led me to complete a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Professional Education. Looking back, I am grateful to have completed the diploma as it provided me opportunities to critically engage and reflect on my role as an educator. Importantly, I was privileged to establish collaborations with colleagues in DHSE which has led to joint publication outputs. In 2021, I was accepted into a national Teaching Advancements at Universities (TAU) Fellowship programme which strives to build and support the professional development of academics as scholars, change-driven leaders, and mentors, in teaching and learning.

Over the years, a common theme in the initiatives I have undertaken has been to positively contribute to practices that have enhanced teaching and learning. I have achieved this by surrounding myself with passionate colleagues and by doing research that I not only love but that has direct impact in the courses I teach in.