Follow Up: Mission Malta Accomplished

Hello friends,

It’s good to be back in Quebec and immersed in my own academic pursuits (which currently revolve around endocrine physiology).

Here is a brief summary of what I did in Malta and where these initiatives are headed in the next few months:

• Small Working Group on the Research Exchange Evaluation Form: with a few members of the research exchange working group, we revised the current model of the evaluation form and added questions more in line with the assessment of the impact that a SCORE research exchange has on a medical student’s personal development and curriculum. The questions are divided into assessment of: technical skills, medical competency development (in line with the CanMEDs framework), soft skills development, and impact on future career. The model was revised by the current Liaison Officer on Medical Education and was implemented for this exchange season. However, the current revision will be reworked with the help of external medical education organizations and a pre and post test will be implemented as of next exchange season.
• Small Working Group on the introduction of SCOPE/SCORE Exchanges: the possibility of NMOs without research infrastructure being able to send students on research exchanges by hosting clinical students was explored. This initiative would allow SCORE to increase its global impact on medical education and expand its scope internationally. The NMO officers present from SCOPE and SCORE were in favour of such an initiative, and helped troubleshoot the logistical issues that were bound to arise from such exchanges. A survey to assess the interest of NMOs in SCORE and SCOPE is currently being developed by the Professional Exchange Director, the Research Exchange Director, the Regional Assistant for Professional Exchanges in the Asia Pacific Region, and myself. This survey should be sent through the NEO/NORE servers in the coming weeks, and the results will help us decide how to go forward with this initiative.
• Regional Session with the Asia Pacific Region: as the Regional Assistant for the region could not be present, I facilitated the regional session along with the Research Exchange Director. This session was particularly insightful; it revealed a lack of handover in a lot of the countries, but no lack of motivation. The region is preparing to host their first wave of local officer trainings and is interested in having more, and many participants (notably MSAI-India) were interested in the steps to be taken for SCORE activation.
• Training on Academic Quality: a small group of national exchange officers learned about the current academic quality possibilities for their NMOs in a presentation speckled with pictures of small animals and relevant links to support manuals.
• SCOREME Joint Session: The Impact of Research in Medical Education: words cannot describe how life changing this event was. I am not skilled enough to put into words the magic of this presentation. My apologies.

I hope you enjoyed this essay of text and are as excited about the future of SCORE as I am!