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WORLD GASTROENTEROLOGY NEWS SEPTEMBER 2019
Editorial | Expert Point of View | WCOG 2019 | WDHD News | WGO & WGOF News | WGO Global Guidelines | Calendar of Events
TTT perspective from Romania: Interactive lectures
and group dynamics in practice
Georgiana-Emmanuela Gîlcă-Blanariu
Romania
For me, as a gastroenterologist in
training, at the beginning of the
teaching career as well, the chance to
take part at WGO’s Train the Trainers
program arose at a perfect time,
giving me the opportunity to have an
insight, early in my career, on how to
do things professionally. These topics
ranged from critical appraisal, how to
prepare a paper for publication, hints
on preparing an abstract, to EBM and
trial design, to embracing professionalism
in all aspects of our career.
Among the first things that had a
great positive impact during the sessions
was how interactive the lectures
were, and how group dynamics were
put into practice. For me, it was extremely
important to have been part
of an amazing team, with members
from across the world, and heterogeneous
backgrounds, but who managed
to work together productively, to
support each other, leading to a great
context to learn from each other, both
from tutors and colleagues. At times
during our group work, especially
on the first days, we felt the need for
more time to prepare our presentations,
and this experience helped us
learn to finish the task in the available
time frame and consequently to
improve our time management skills
as well.
All the teamwork set grounding
for the bonds and the friendships we
created, which were further enhanced
during the social program, which also
helped us get to know each other better,
identify common hobbies and to
share our culture and traditions. The
cultural evening was a special time we
spent together, when we were offered
a glimpse of such amazing and diverse
cultures; it was extremely fulfilling to
see how colleagues enjoyed getting to
see the Romanian traditional dancing,
clothing and cuisine and also to
have been able to contribute myself to
highlighting the Romanian cultural
background.
TTT has also offered the opportunity
to learn from extremely skilled
teachers, who shared with us not only
their knowledge on how to conduct
an RCT or to write a good abstract,
but also their educational skills, public
speaking hints and how to make
our presentations more appealing
and suitable for the target audience.
Since I find these skills are extremely
valuable for my career, I consider
tackling these aspects as important
strong points of the TTT program;
moreover, following this training I
began improving these features during
my presentations and have already
received great feedback. During the
TTT we also learned how to offer
feedback, so now I am able to not
only practice this skill but also teach
my students to do so and to suggest
this to my colleagues as well.
In my mind, TTT presented in
an interactive way a wide range of
knowledge that a complete gastroenterology
trainer should acquire. It was
a great opportunity that WGO and
the Romanian Society of Gastroenterology
& Hepatology, through all
the involved members, offered me,
and I hope I will be able to contribute
to improvement of gastroenterology
practice, research and teaching
and spread the knowledge I gained
through this amazing experience.
Thank you, TTT team and all
WGO staff for your contribution
to make this wonderful experience
possible and for all efforts to keep it
In my mind, TTT presented growing!
in an interactive way a wide
range of knowledge that a
complete gastroenterology
trainer should acquire.
The cultural evening was a special time we
spent together