ANG Chee Yen, Centre for Medical Education (CenMED), Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUSMed)
LEE Shuh Shing, Centre for Medical Education (CenMED)
LAU Tang Ching, Dean’s Office, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUSMed), and
Dujeepa SAMARASEKERA, Centre for Medical Education (CenMED)

Chee Yen and his co-presenters share their experience of implementing programmes under NUSMed’s Pathways programme, which aims to ensure continuity in medical students’ training amidst the pandemic. They presented this teaching and learning experience as a PechaKucha during the online Higher Education Campus Conference (e-HECC) 2020

Recommended Citation

Ang C. Y., Lee S. S., Lau T. C., & Samarasekera, D. (2020, Dec 8-9). Creating meaningful learning opportunities during COVID lockdown [Conference presentation]. Online Higher Education Campus Conference (e-HECC) 2020, Centre for Development of Teaching & Learning, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/teachingconnections/2021/08/30/creating-meaningful-learning-opportunities-during-covid-lockdown/

In 2020, the global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions to medical students’ learning. To mitigate its impact, the Yong Loo Ling School of Medicine (NUSMed) set up the Pathways Initiative to ensure continuity in their students’ medical training despite pandemic-related disruptions to local and overseas postings.

In this PechaKucha presentation, Chee Yen and his colleagues at the Centre for Medical Education (CenMed) share their experience of anchoring two programmes under the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine’s (NUSMed) Pathways programme in 2020—(1) Medical Education (STAR—Skills in Teaching And Research), and (2) Medical Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MIE). The STAR pathway exposes medical students to concepts and principles in Health Profession Education (HPE), with a focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) so as to groom them as future clinician educators. The MIE pathway aims to ignite their spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship so that these attributes would lead them, as future doctors and innovators, to find practical solutions to resolve healthcare challenges.

This presentation highlights how a school effectively responded to the pandemic situation in a timely manner to ensure a safe, effective, and continuous learning environment. It is hoped that this serves as a good reference for adapting to a crisis situation and the importance of maintaining continuity of the learning environment, which would better prepare institutions of similar settings for future pandemics.

 

	ANG Chee Yen is an Assistant Manager at the NUS Centre for Medical Education (CenMED), Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. His primary role is to support the NUSMed Undergraduate programmes (including Electives posting) at CenMED. He is passionate to always explore new ways of doing things better (with technology or processes) and firmly believes in looking at things from different perspectives. Chee Yen can be reached at cheeyen.ang@nus.edu.sg.
	LEE Shuh Shing is a Medical Educationalist at CenMED. She was previously a Medical Educationalist attached to the Medical Education Research and Development Unit (MERDU) in University of Malaya. After obtaining her PhD in education, she has been actively involved in MBBS curriculum planning and provided staff training in University of Malaya. Her main research interests are in teaching and learning approaches, technology in teaching and learning, student learning and qualitative research.
	Associate Professor LAU Tang Ching is a Senior Consultant Rheumatologist in the Division of Rheumatology, University Medicine Cluster, NUHS. He is also both the Vice-Dean (Education), NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, and the Group Director of NUHS Education Office. His main research interests are in osteoporosis, pharmacoeconomic evaluation, medical education and evidence-based medicine.
	Dujeepa SAMARASEKERA is the Director, CDTL, Senior Director, CenMED, and Senior Consultant at the Ministry of Health (MOH), Singapore. Dujeepa has been involved in curriculum development, quality assurance and accreditation and faculty development at both undergraduate and postgraduate level health professional courses.