International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Volume 5, Number 1, January 2011
Return to current issues pageResearch Article
Excerpt
Preparing Medical Students to Undertake a Cultural Immersion Experience: Introducing Frameworks for Preparatory and Post-Immersion Activities
Recruiting and retaining practitioners to rural and remote locations
is a challenge for many industries including health and education. The
medical, nursing and teaching professions have utilized immersion experiences
for trainees and students to better prepare them and to address workforce
shortages in cross-cultural and underserved areas. This paper describes
the steps taken to improve an immersion experience for medical students
and evaluates the impact of these improvements. The University of Notre
Dame's School...
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Full ArticleBios
Donna B. MakUniversity of Notre Dame
Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
dmak@nd.edu.au
I am a specialist public health doctor and have been teaching medical students in clinical and university settings since 1989. I now teach medical students at Notre Dame's School of Medicine where, as Head of the Population and Preventive Health Domain, I am responsible for the public health curriculum. I also practice public health medicine in Western Australia's Department of Health. I am passionate about reorienting medical students' focus from treating/palliating illness promoting/maintaining health and opening their hearts and minds to the joys and challenges of living and "doctoring" in remote and cross-cultural settings.
Rashmi WatsonUniversity of Notre Dame
Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
Rashmi.watson@nd.edu.au
I am a Senior Lecturer and the Teaching & Learning Professional Development Coordinator at The University of Notre Dame, Australia. My role includes coordinating and teaching within a higher education certificate for academic staff. My scholarly interests are around general education and improving student learning after having experienced teaching in all year levels from pre-school to higher education over the past 17 years. I have recently submitted my (education) doctoral thesis for examination and am awaiting the results.
John Hadden University of Notre Dame
Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
Jhadden1@nd.edu.au
My name is John Hadden and I am currently responsible for performing qualitative and quantitative studies of the University of Notre Dame's School of Medicine curriculum, as well as some more technical duties related to data management and analysis. Prior to this, I worked full time on my Ph.D., utilising soft computing and statistical techniques to create a methodology for predicting customer churn. I enjoy actively participating in research projects, and while my passion is for machine learning techniques and data mining methods, I willingly consider involvement in most projects, including those where learning curves maybe apparent. I am currently working on an investigation into the Clinical Debriefing components of a medical curriculum to identify its influences on medical students' personal and professional development.