Speakers

Dr. Dujeepa D. Samarasekera, MD, Ph.D.

Director of CDTL (Centre for Development of Teaching & Learning), National University of Singapore

Speaker's Biography

Dr. Dujeepa D. Samarasekera graduated from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, with MBBS (Honours) in 1995 and, after training as a physician, developed further in Health Professions Education in the Netherlands.

At Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, he is the Senior Director of the Centre for Medical Education, Director of the university's Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning, and a University Teaching Excellence Committee member. He leads the School of Medicine Continuous Quality Improvement team for education. He is also a member of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, Graduate Medical Education Committee, Faculty Assessment Committee, and Curriculum Steering Task Force at the School of Medicine and National University Health System (NUHS).

Dr. Samarasekera also provides leadership and expertise to the Ministry of Health in the following areas - program accreditation; and development of training courses and assessment frameworks for Medical, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Allied Health programs. He is the immediate past President of the College of Clinician Educators at the Academy of Medicine of Singapore and became President of the Western Pacific Association of Medical Education in 2018. He is a council member of the World Federation of Medical Education (WFME) and Chairs the WFME Risk Committee, and is a member of the Finance Committee.

Dr. Samarasekera is the Editor-in-Chief of The Asia Pacific Scholar (TAPS) journal and serves on the editorial advisory boards of several other international medical education journals; and has published widely in peer-reviewed medical education journals as well as authored book chapters. He is an honorary Professor and Visiting Faculty at Tzu Chi University of Science and Technology, Taiwan; Semey State Medical University, Kazakhstan; and the University of Maastricht, Netherlands.

Topic

Re-thinking Medical Education: Time to get back to basics!?

Abstract

The current pandemic has forced almost all medical education training programs to adopt measures to mitigate the negative impact of COVID and continue training the next generation of doctors. There is a sense of urgency to change the training formats, and the changes sometimes are said to be the "new normal" in medical education. While we do need to change our students' and residents' training programs to maintain service continuity and mitigate the effects of the pandemic. It is important to remember the ultimate goal of medical education: to develop a competent, compassionate, caring and caring and effective clinical practitioner. The presentation will focus on this aspect and share some best practices and the presenters' own experiences.