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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
Train the Trainers: A unique experience combining
learning clinical teaching skills and global
networking for all gastroenterology specialties
Laura Merras-Salmio
Finland
Inspired by the past encouraging reports
from our colleagues on the TTT
program, we set out to travel from
Finland to the Bucharest TTT on a
beautiful spring Sunday. The Romanian
Society of Gastroenterology and
Hepatology hosted the four-day TTT
course held in a congress hotel close
to the Bucharest international airport.
Having dutifully read and prepared
for the assigned pre-tasks (including
curious dance move videoclips), we
felt already in advance that this was
going to be a productive week. And
indeed, it turned out to be so.
The three of us representing the
Finnish Society of Gastroenterology
come all from different specialties: a
GI surgeon, a pediatric gastroenterol-
ogist and a gastroenterologist. During
the course, the medical background
became superfluous as the course
subjects were those uniting us all:
how to best teach/coach our trainees
to succeed in acquiring the necessary
clinical, academic and motor skills.
There was much focus on evaluation:
both encouraging self-evaluation and
teaching us to give both critical and
positive feedback. We learned to apply
the Pendleton’s Rules for evaluation in
practice, including evaluating our own
dancing performances (“Yes, we think
the group succeeded best in actually
following the beat of the music,
and yes, next time we think a more
organized practice session would be
needed to kick up the performance”).
Medical education is
undergoing major changes
and during this TTT
course, we were given
the opportunity to learn
about some modern
teaching methods applying
e-learning and more
interactive approaches.
The course program in general was
organized into well-defined sessions,
breaking the participants into small
groups for more hands-on practice,
with general summary discussions
concluding the sessions. Days were
full: starting at 7:45 AM lasting until
4:30 PM, with evening social programs
and dinner (and one afternoon
city sightseeing trip) taking up the
evenings.
Medical education is undergoing
major changes and during this TTT
course, we were given the opportunity
to learn about some modern teaching
methods applying e-learning and
The course program in general was organized
into well-defined sessions
Johanna Louhimo
Finland
Taina Sipponen
Finland