Current projects
Education went through a major transition to online teaching and testing during the Corona crisis. This requires a lot of new expertise and extra effort from advisors, support staff and teachers, aimed at ensuring the best possible continuation of education. In addition, the plan aims to use the valuable experiences from this period for a structural improvement in the post-corona period, with a particular emphasis on innovative, blended education and digital testing, and a better support organization. For both the short and longer term, professionalization, is of great importance. This plan aims to realize the implementation of online and blended education and testing in the short and longer term.
Students are increasingly used in teaching and co-creating education. They receive training for this purpose and thus gain a great deal of teaching experience, which enhances the quality of small-scale education in particular. Each department or program that employs teaching-assistants now provides its own subject-specific training that focuses primarily on how to perform teaching. The first goal of this project is to professionalize cross-curricular training by developing a general course. By strengthening pedagogical-didactic competence, we ensure the quality of teaching provided by teaching-assistants
Well-developed spatial understanding is essential in acquiring spatial anatomical knowledge and learning medical technical skills. Although spatial understanding can be measured and trained, this skill is not adequately recognized and acknowledged in the current curriculum. Training can occur with conventional anatomy education, but bodies are limited in availability and cannot be used indefinitely. With the use of 3D technologies such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, an ideal learning environment will be developed to train spatial awareness in an innovative, dynamic way and as often as desired. Moreover, experience with AR & VR is a necessity to work in the medical (technical) field of the future.
Pandemic! develops small-scale, interdisciplinary and inspiring project education for the new curriculum that teaches students responsible medical leadership in dealing with socially complex health issues. In 2022, 2023 and 2024, pilots are running in which students experience a pandemic in the form of a play. Each act raises new questions that the students must "solve" as a team, under the guidance of trained teachers. In doing so, they take a primarily interdisciplinary approach. Developing "a broad view" and leadership skills such as cooperation, acting with flexibility and integrity, and good communication are central. Pandemic! also offers teacher professionalization in interdisciplinary project teaching.
In the Technical Medicine program, we want to respond to the desire of students to better demonstrate and further improve the coherence of the curriculum. With teachers in three different institutions (Erasmus MC, TUDelft and LUMC) and an interdisciplinary, constantly changing curriculum, it is a big challenge to get and keep the connection between the different program parts clear. By deploying a curriculum information system (CIS) we want to provide a solution for this. We want to use the CIS
of the Medicine program and have it further developed into a CIS+ by the supplier YourNextConcepts. As much as possible we will work together with the medical school that has now started developing the new ErasmusArts2030 curriculum.
Current and future HoKa projects would benefit from the support of a designated project coordinator stationed at OBA. However, the job market is so tight at the moment that a definite candidate has not yet been found.
At Erasmus MC, we work on distinctive top education that appeals to ambitious, inquisitive and talented students and connects to the healthcare and health issues of tomorrow. We are the most progressive university medical center in the Netherlands, innovative and trend-setting, linking medicine, biomedical and natural sciences, data science and technology in an effective way. During Corona, it became clear that our educational facilities did not align with the above policy goals. Education, where part of the students cannot be present in the education center but still fully participate in the education offered, is not possible at this time. However, this type of education is here to stay and students, faculty and programs demand that our facilities accommodate that. Erasmus MC is the most advanced technical UMC in the Netherlands, and that calls for matching educational facilities.
There is a great awareness in the medical world that we need to act quickly in our sector to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change, all the more so because it has a major impact on health and health inequalities. Physicians and other health care providers must therefore develop knowledge and skills during their training to promote health, reduce health disparities, combat climate change and make the health care sector sustainable. To achieve this, teachers are being trained and education is being developed for the renewed medical school in Rotterdam. Students from other disciplines will participate in several components. The education makes use of activating forms of education throughout the program and consists of activating components and electives/projects.
TREC is the framework of an educational program where students develop communication, collaboration and reflection skills while learning how to do transdisciplinary research. Students from different disciplines will learn how to thoroughly understand a research problem together, learning and developing strategies for further research. It will be built such that it can be transferred to other programs and topics. It will first be applied to the Nanobiology Transdisciplinary Research minor (NTRm). NTRm is an LDE minor and open to all students from all disciplines, including Medicine, and its research topic will be a Convergence Flagship. TREC will develop teacher professionalization materials and evaluation tools. It is a project co-created by Nanobiology students, the NB student association, teachers and staff, with additional participation by education experts.
Completed projects
During the master's phase of the medical program, a research internship is one of the requirements for medical students. This is preceded by intensive teaching in which methods and techniques of research are taught. The consultancy project then tries to guide the students during their research period through weekly walk-in consultations, requestable consultations and by putting them in contact with appropriate people.
Results
A total of 108 consultations were requested, 21 of which were double consultations (second request for further clarification). A total of 87 students were helped. Questions frequently asked were: Which statistical analysis can I best use; help with regression analysis; help with using certain statistical programs. In addition to the students who asked for help during corona, about 30 took advantage of the walk-in consultation hour. The Consultation Centre for Patient-Oriented research (CPO) has offered to continue the project under its wing. There will continue to be a project leader who will distribute the questions coming in at the existing email address to PhD students. The cost of the project leader will be taken by CPO and the PhD students will provide help for free.
For the academic programs, together with lecturers, a blended form of education is being developed, with differentiated and adaptive online learning forms that encourage students to prepare themselves well for contact education and matches their knowledge and/or interests. This allows small-scale education to become more intensive and effective. Attention is also paid to evaluation and research into optimal design choices and effectiveness. Realization of this will require additional effort on the part of the program.
Results
There are a number of adaptively made modules in the master. Students indicated beforehand the need for feedback on their learning; and afterwards indicate satisfaction with the adapted modules. The ultimate goal is to gather information that is going to help further roll out the concept of adaptive learning. The further rollout will take place in the "Acceleration Plan Online Education and Testing (Versnellingsplan Online Onderwijs en Toetsen)" and will later become part of normal business operations as well.
Currently, it is difficult for students to prepare or study surgical approaches. The information on the Internet is inaccessible, difficult to understand, of poor quality, outdated or comes at a cost. Anapptomy is a mobile pocketbook where students can study the most common operations step by step through photographic representation and textual support, adapted to the level expected of the intern. All content is developed in consultation with the Departments of Anatomy and Surgery at Erasmus MC. This creates a reliable resource for surgical anatomy that is accessible anytime, anywhere.
Results
The web application describes and visualizes 27 operations that frequently come along in the surgery fellowship. The app was tested on a cohort of interns in surgery. The results are very good: 92% of the respondents felt that the information on the app contributes to good preparation; 88% felt that the app is a valuable addition to existing resources. The app will be integrated into the Surgery internship, into the e-modules so that students are frequently made aware of it and it really becomes an important part of the online curriculum.
Today's healthcare is unthinkable without technology. Yet the adoption of especially digital technological innovations in practice lags behind. This is partly related to the lack of advocates: physicians and clinical technologists capable of making the translation from research to practice. In this project, we want to encourage students to learn about this so that they are able to critically evaluate digital innovations and take a leading role in translating them into clinical practice.
Results
A pilot was conducted in one of the minors (Sept-Nov 2021). The students participating in the minor were divided into 4 groups and got to work with a new technology actually used in patient treatment at Erasmus MC where questions were answered such as: What is the impact on doctor-patient relationship; what are other possibilities of this technology and where are the limits. In addition, hard work was done to create courses that started in season 2022-2023 within the old curriculum of the Bachelor of Medicine. There are three components: - Introduction of AI in the medical field; - Remote E-health monitoring; - Virtual Reality in clinical practice.
Diversity and Inclusiveness (D&I) does not receive sufficient attention in the study of medicine (from the 2017 visitation report of the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) medical school). As a result, the Erasmus physician is not optimally prepared for his/her future work as a physician in the midst of a diverse society. By realizing the goals of the project D&I for the Erasmus doctor, through small-scale and activating education, EUR medical students are taught knowledge, skills and attitudes. These attitudes are necessary to treat patients from minority groups in an equal and non-judgmental manner. The above ambitions can only be achieved by providing the teaching staff at Erasmus MC with skills that will make them more capable of guiding students in this and making their own education more "inclusive.
Results:
- Work has been done to improve conditions for inclusion: A developed and signed charter in which student organizations and the medical faculty make a joint effort to create a more inclusive (learning) environment and better collaboration; The academic ceremonies that are more D&I-proof; 1st day of college focusing on a safer landing in the program.
- Work has been done on Student Professionalization: 2 courses have been developed, making the boards of the student organizations (and optionally the committee members of the student organizations) and the members of the JVTs, aware of both the bottlenecks and opportunities regarding D&I in the current intra and extra curricular education.
- Teacher professionalization has been worked on: an (online) training day has been developed, including preparatory e-module. Evaluations have been very positive.
- Rollout of DandI in the master is facilitated through an NPO project where inclusion in normal operations is paramount.
In order to optimally utilize the current Teaching Center, some modifications are needed. The current project plan makes a number of improvements to Teaching Center 1 that will lead to better utilization of all rooms for the benefit of the organization and the students. This will improve the learning climate and allow us to invest responsibly in the Teaching Center Phase 2
Results
All objectives of the project have been achieved:
- The number of electrical outlets to be realized in teaching spaces where this has not yet been realized is two outlets for every three seats
- The ten lounge areas have been converted to approximately sixty computer workstations
- The number of Chesterfield seats has been increased by 20 three-seat sofas, tripling the number of seats
- Placed privacy partitions between the self-study areas. This was previously a desire of the students and was also important because of COVID19
- Decorating the Chesterfield groups in the back of the Teaching Center (rugs, coffee tables and partitions between the groups).
- Soundproofing in the entrance halls of the Teaching Center
- Increasing the number of plants and trees in the OWC Teaching Center
Interns often experience arbitrariness in their assessments. What are the conditions under which subjectivity can be reduced? This project focuses on analyzing and improving the entire system of feedback and assessment. Aim: to optimize the assessment system, aimed at quality improvement and more longitudinal testing and assessment, and to provide tools for assessors and supervisors in assessing and giving constructive feedback.
Results
Pilots were started in surgery and gynecology. In the pilots 3 assessments will take place per coschap where the first assessment is mainly meant to look back and forward where the student expresses his/her learning goals for the internship. Furthermore, it will also be specifically examined how the transfer from one internship to the next can best take place. This project has been taken over by normal operation as of 31/12/2021 and will take into effect from summer 2023 onwards.
The EMC aims for 80% of its students to have an experience abroad. The adequate supervision of students during their internship abroad is a challenge. With the development of the tool proposed here, students will have 24/7 insight into what study abroad options are available and what steps to take before-during-after the internship. Also, this tool gives the program 24/7 information about which student is where in the process and the entire process is secured from start to finish.
Results
A new e-module has been created in early 2022 on practical matters concerning departure abroad. OSIRIS has been set up with the vaccination policy linked to it. The digital vaccination booklet has been adapted so that it can be registered directly by Travelclinic.
The curriculum information system CIS captures meta-information and educational content from undergraduate and graduate Medicine, primarily for the benefit of faculty and the training organization. The CIS-Student project aims to provide students with access to the information and functionality relevant to them in the CIS, in such a way that it provides clear added value to their studies.
Results
The application for students to access the CIS has been added to the system.
The best professional in the best place! We want to provide our professionals of tomorrow, our students, optimal guidance and information about the career choices that lie ahead of them, well before they complete their medical master's. We also want to offer them to get to know all their talents, so they can make a sustainable career choice based on these two elements. This way, they will have sufficient information to make the best choice with regard to their future!
Results
Survey results emphatically indicate the need for coaching. On the website (Matchyourfuture.nl), 6 podcasts have been posted about career paths chosen by different professionals. It is also possible to make an appointment with a coach to have about 5 career coaching meetings. The coaches are all medics who also provide coaching. It now appears that about 55% of the students take advantage of the opportunity to enter such a pathway. The program has indicated that this project in some form should become part of normal business operations. To achieve this, an NPO project was launched.
This portal would help small projects by students and/or teachers to start up quickly and with limited resources. The duration of such projects would not exceed 1 to 1.5 years. This project proved not to meet expectations and was stopped early on.
Medication errors are a major cause of health harm including hospitalizations. Research shows that newly graduated physicians make most prescribing errors as a result of limited knowledge of and limited experience with prescribing drugs. To improve prescribing skills, a "student-run clinic" is being initiated in which interns can gain experience in independently formulating a treatment plan for outpatients, prescribing drug(s) and monitoring the conducted policy, under the supervision of an internist-clinical pharmacologist.
Results
The project achieved its objectives at the end of its term. A great result is that beyond the overall satisfaction of students, faculty and patients, the project has been incorporated into the normal operations of the department. The income from DBCs is made available by the department to continue running the project for the benefit of the interns in Internal Medicine.
The Research Suite of Erasmus MC will November 2020 start offering Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELN) to all ‘vaste medewerkers’ and personnel, including ReMa and PhD students with a ‘gastvrijheidsovereenkomst’. These contracts expire in Q3 2023. However, it is not yet clear what the added value of ELN will be to the (improved) quality of research teaching and training at EMC. In this project we will collect data and canvas ReMa students, their research teachers (supervisors), ReMA directors and the EMC Research Suite, in order to assess the potential advantages and disadvantages of ELN in promoting and improving the quality of research teaching and training for all EMC researchers. The results will be used to generate an ‘ELN Roadmap’, which will be presented to the Medezeggenschap, Directeur Informatie Technologie (DIT) and RvB of EMC as evidence-based information for consideration in the recommendations for the renewal (or not) of ELN licenses. The information can also be used to leverage ELN software developments specific for Erasmus MC’s quality needs.
Results
The following key factors were distilled from surveys administered to students and faculty.
- Opinions are divided, although a (small) majority of students agree that the use of ELN enhances the quality of research training at Erasmus MC.
- Communication about the availability and increasing number of resources/support for ELN users (both students and faculty) could be further optimized, including improving the ELN knowledge of supervisors.
- Several potential modifications have been proposed for future versions of ELN that could increase the functionality of ELN and affect the quality of research training. For example, issues related to two-factor verification, data storage, the ability to draw in ELN, linking experiments, access from outside Erasmus MC, working on existing projects with people from other groups, etc.