Health Sciences Education conference honours winners

Innovation won the day at the Faculty’s 8th annual Celebrating Health Sciences Education Conference this year. The Faculty’s creative and inquiring minds shared how they have addressed some vexing educational challenges. The award for the best presentation went to Jaisubash Jayakumar for his paper on “Innovative Strategies for Enhanced Learning of Immunology”. Dr Jayakumar designed a technology based solution that supports students’ learning and combats the negative perceptions that first year students can develop if they struggle while learning immunology for the first time.

Charle Viljoen also turned to technology to help students learn the subtleties of ECG interpretation and received an award for his presentation while Ikechukwu Nwanze was awarded for his description of how disability issues can be included into undergraduate curricula.

Speakers also addressed transformation in education in the faculty. The keynote speaker for the day, Deputy Dean for Health Services: Dr Reno Morar reflected on the journey that his life and career have taken and how this relates to the ongoing challenges that many students still experience in our faculty.

Other talks explored issues as varied as mitigating language related anxiety in linguistically diverse classrooms and countering hegemony in teaching health for all at a medical school.

The judges were spoiled for choice as they navigated a record number of presentations on the day. Chair of the Organising Committee, Francois Cilliers from the Department of Health Sciences Education and his team were also thrilled with the record number of registrations. Almost 100 staff from the Faculty registered for the conference, a reflection, said A/Prof Cilliers, of the commitment in the faculty to teaching that meets the needs of our students and our communities.

Keynote Speaker

Keynote Address by Deputy Dean for Health Services, Dr Reno Morar, "True Confessions of a Bourgeois Baby"

First Prize:

Associate Professor Gonda Perez, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences (left) congratulates Jaisubash Jayakumar on "Innovative Strategies for Enhanced Learning of Immunology"

Second Prize:

Associate Professor Gonda Perez, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences (left) congratulates Charle Viljoen who accepted the prize on behalf of himself and Rob Scott Millar, Ashley Chin, Mpiko Ntsekhe & Rachel Weiss on "ECG ONLINE: providing web-based opportunities for ECG learning"

Third Prize:

Associate Professor Gonda Perez, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences (left) congratulates  Ikechukwu Nwanze, who accepted the prize on behalf of himself and Harsha Kathard & Chioma Ohajunwa on "How can we include disability issues into undergraduate curriculum at UCT"