Seek Common Development: Medical Education and Accreditation of Medical Education in Pandemic

At the invitation of David Gordon, President of The World Federation for Medical Education (WFME), representatives of Working Committee for the Accreditation of Medical Education (WCAME) and the Secretariat of WCAME participated in the online seminar “WFME outlook: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on accreditation and practice in medical education” on 24 June. (click here to view the seminar video: https://wfme.org/news/）

The meeting was chaired by David Gordon, President of WFME; Dr. Jack Boulet, vice president of research and data resources from FAIMER; Professor Michael Field from University of Sydney; Azim Mirzazadeh, Associate Professor at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, and Professor Janet Grant, Special Adviser to the WFME, presented their views on the seminar. More than 200 medical educators and accreditation institutions from around the world participated in the seminar.

The seminar focused on three topics: “How does the epidemic affect the accreditation of medical schools?”, “what might be the standards for distance learning in medical education?”, and “adapting and augmenting WFME Recognition of Accreditation Programme.”.

Ø The pandemic has a great impact on the flow and the safety of medical students, the quality of graduates and the education model.

Ø It is suggested that medical students still need face-to-face training and practice.

Ø Medical schools need to strengthen cooperation with health systems, especially teaching hospitals.

Ø Students as stakeholders need to understand the status of accreditation of their medical schools.

Ø To ensure that WFME standards are appropriate for evaluating online and distance learning.

Ø Medical schools need to design different implementation plans and quality assurance process when changing the curriculum, especially the evaluation of online learning quality.

Ø Distributed learning is a learning model that is suitable for the current form and consists of distributed teaching and distributed assessment. Experts expect accreditation bodies to reform themselves according to the specific quality and requirements of distributed learning.

Ø WFME will continue to conduct on-site observations of institutions that need to be recognized, and will proceed as planned when the situation improves.

Ø WFME is in the process of revising the third edition oftheBasic Medical Education WFME Global Standards for Quality Improvement to ensure that it applies to all cultures and contexts.

Through this seminar, we had a deep understanding of the problems and solutions in the global medical education and accreditation under the current special situation, and grasped WFME’s new standards, new ideas and new trends in medical education, which it provides guidance and reference for carrying out the medical education reform and the accreditation of medical education in China.