Practice of Medicine

Background: Medical schools are expected to churn out all-rounded healthcare professionals who are competent in the prerequisite knowledge and skills necessary to address the everchanging health needs of the society. This is usually made possible through innovation and strategy, one of which involves the continuous review and renewal of all the components of existing teaching and learning plans through a blueprinting process called curriculum mapping. This blueprint allows for curriculum goals development, together with management, reviewing and organizing its contents. As curriculum mapping of medical programmes was in its infancy stage at the time of this research, this study focusses on reporting the perspectives of the curriculum leaders on future directions for curriculum mapping of undergraduate medical programmes in South Africa. Method: Purposive sampling was used in a qualitative study among fourteen academics involved in medical curricula at all eight medical schools. Semi...

Curriculum mapping in medical education allows for quick determination whether the curriculum meets the required standards and if its contents are aligned with the learning outcomes. This ensures the curriculum stays relevant, producing graduates capable of addressing the health needs of the institution’s host community. The status of curriculum mapping of the undergraduate medical programmes in South African medical schools was not documented in the literature at the time of this research. This study aimed to describe the current status of curriculum mapping of undergraduate medical programmes in South Africa. A qualitative study was conducted among the academic managers from all the eight medical schools in 2015. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from fourteen participants who were purposefully sampled, and data analysis was done by inductive thematic analysis after coding and verbatim transcriptions. None of the medical schools had a fully developed mapping pla...

A challenge in curriculum designing and refining is to ensure that objectives for knowledge, skills and attitudes are clear, structured within the learning opportunities of modules, and aligned with assessment formats, outcomes, competencies and content taxonomies. Curriculum mapping entails a process of matching learning outcomes with elements of the curriculum [1] and provides the required visual representation of these various curriculum components, attributes and relationships. [2] The challenge of alignment can therefore be met by mapping on an electronic platform, which provides for the systematic organisation and linking of various curriculum elements into a database. [3-5] Harden [3] describes curriculum mapping as a blueprint that provides a multidimensional overview of four interrelated key areas: content (learning objectives), learning outcomes, learning opportunities (events contributing to outcomes) and the related assessment. Viewing the map through these four 'windows' reveals what has to be learnt, how it can be learnt and how it must be assessed. Curriculum mapping visually represents key elements of a programme that contributes to student learning. [1] A relational curriculum database as described above makes the curriculum transparent owing to the online accessibility and search ability. It allows users to browse through the information in different ways [6] to view aligned content by using descriptors in various hierarchies of the outcomes, competencies and content taxonomies as keywords to filter data. The power of the map clearly lies in the links between curriculum elements [7] on which these searches are based. The transparency of the curriculum map enables the visibility of students' prior exposure to particular content and planning of the level and breadth of new learning. [3] Viewing the learning spiral by filtering the progression in terms of breadth, depth, utility and proficiency, as reflected in learning objectives, [4] clarifies students' and educators' understanding of where students are going and the steps they need to take to get there. [4,8] Revision of a curriculum is facilitated through multiple searching and reporting features of a curriculum map. Educators are enabled to check for redundancies, inconsistencies, misalignments and weaknesses. [9] This includes reviewing whether the content is congruent with expected learning outcomes, [3,5,6] considering the availability of teachers and suitable patients, [5] identifying learning objectives that are not covered or overlap with other content domains and detecting inconsistencies between objectives and assessment. [10] The map provides for a review of assessment methods, [9] and by correcting inconsistencies and possible mismatches between teaching and assessment, valid examinations can be constructed. [3] Viewing the scope of these patterns and relationships, complexity and cohesion of the curriculum [11] are important for the purposes of curriculum management, analysis and reporting. [7,12,13] A web-based curriculum platform facilitates constant evaluation, updating and improving of curricula in real time, driving improvements to learning and teaching practices, [14] and is seen as an essential tool to Background. A web-based curriculum is made transparent by providing multidimensional overviews of content (learning objectives) aligned with learning outcomes and frameworks, opportunities and assessment formats. A South African university embarked on the mapping of its curricula on the web-based learning opportunities, objectives and outcome platform (LOOOP). Objectives. To reflect on the customisation of LOOOP and training of lecturers, and to determine lecturers' perceptions of the usability and value of LOOOP. Methods. The project manager reflected on the initiating processes, and a survey determined the lecturers' perceptions of the usability and value of curriculum mapping, using a 4-point Likert scale questionnaire. The convenience sample comprised the first 30 lecturers who had uploaded their curriculum content and consented to partake in this ethics-approved study. Descriptive statistics portray the percentages of agreement on the positive statements of the questionnaire. Results. Challenges related to slow staff buy-in and development were experienced. Required modifications to LOOOP were promptly dealt with. The majority of participants agreed on the usability (≥89%), as well as structure and transparency (≥87%) of LOOOP. Mapping is expected to enhance curriculum revision (≥95%) and communication (≥96%), viewing the curriculum scope, complexity and cohesion (97%), as well as abstracting data for management analysis and reporting (100%). Conclusions. The lecturers agreed on the usability and values of curriculum mapping, which indicates that online mapping is sufficiently beneficial to justify the time and resources invested. Mapping should be a product of collaborative participation and planned as a long-term commitment, which can also be used to research the impact of mapping on student learning.

Selection of medical students at South African (SA) medical schools must promote equitable and fair access to students from all population groups, while ensuring optimal student throughput and success, and training future healthcare practitioners who will fulfil the needs of the local society. In keeping with international practices, a variety of academic and non-academic measures are used to select applicants for medical training programmes in SA medical schools. To provide an overview of the selection procedures used by all eight medical schools in SA, and the student demographics (race and gender) at these medical schools, and to determine to what extent collective practices are achieving the goals of student diversity and inclusivity. A retrospective, quantitative, descriptive study design was used. All eight medical schools in SA provided information regarding selection criteria, selection procedures, and student demographics (race and gender). Descriptive analysis of data was ...

Introduction: Cultural humility (CH) is a vital journey for addressing diversity, but its application remains elusive. While existing literature covers cultural humility's why and what mainly in the context of western countries, the holistic development of its parts during medical training remains underexplored. Given the foundational role of interactions in cultural humility, this study explores its development during various interactions with peers, teachers, patients and researchers across a diversity of education and clinical health care settings marked by inherent power imbalance and inequity. Methods: An interpretivist qualitative case study approach was employed, involving purposive sampling of diverse medical students from one medical school in a country with one of the highest inequity coe cients in the world. Data collection was through semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. Ethical clearance and participant consent was obtained. Results: Interactions between actors unfolded in multiple dimensions and layers. Findings were classi ed into four themes i.e. journeying from feeling like an outsider to embracing interactions, from absolute truth to questioning perceptions, journeying within power imbalance; and embracing future roles through introspection. For participants two fundamental dilemmas remained, i.e. whether to navigate social relations and how to navigate intergroup con ict. Discussion: This study argues that the development of CH is context based and dynamic; however, it's development should not be assumed but should be considered as multifaceted and layered, where the individual process is signi cantly in uenced by past contexts as well as enhancing interactions with peers, teachers, patients and researchers both formally and informally.