On July 2, students and faculty of the National Teacher Training Center for the Health Professions (NTTCHP) gathered online for the e-Health Professions Education Exposition (HPEd Expo) 2020 to cap off the academic year. With the theme “HPEd in the Midst of Universal Health Care and COVID-19,” the Expo served as a platform for the discussion of the new and sudden challenges being thrust into the landscape of HPEd.
Delivering the first of two presentations, Dr. Jose Y. Cueto, Jr. of the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) delved into the complexities of the present situation by identifying key problems from a student-centered perspective. These include the abruptly shortened academic year of 2019-2020, reduced academic requirements, and reduced clinical exposure. Dr. Cueto said that these issues are already affecting incoming licensure examinees who feel a greater lack of preparedness in taking their exams as opposed to pre-COVID-19 examinees. He also said that the PRC is still coming up with ways to handle the logistics for these exams given the strict prohibitions on mass gatherings and face-to-face interactions in areas under quarantine. Nevertheless, the PRC will not ease professional standards for performance evaluation.
For the incoming school year, he mentioned that the biggest concern is the inequity of conditions for students with resources and those without resources. The absence of clinical rotations will also take its toll on their education as certain aspects in student-patient interaction may not be as easily provided by simulations and case studies. Another challenge would be the monitoring of educational conditions and ensuring that the needs of every school are met despite the variance in lockdown levels across the country.
For the second presentation, NTTCHP Professor Dr. Nemuel S. Fajutagana explained how institutions can successfully shift into an online educational system which is necessary not only because of Covid19 but because educators should always strive to establish systems that are flexible and integrative.
He emphasized that in order to eliminate inequity, institutions must advocate for equal access to educational technology for all of their students. In the meantime, the lack of resources should not deter teachers. Rather, they must be reminded of the basic principles of teaching and that ingenuity goes a long way in the pursuit of outsmarting restrictions, inadequacies, and unfamiliarities.
Dr. Fajutagana urged NTTCHP students and faculty to be open to the empowering role of technology and to not shy away from new methods. A multitude of platforms including Zoom, Moodle, Google Forms, as well as online simulations and gaming and quiz-maker apps can be used to hone skills such as critical thinking, curiosity, collaboration, learning independence, and management of personal data and intellectual properties. Dr. Fajutagana also suggested maximizing these platforms while restrictions on clinical exposure are still in place.
Whatever method/s they choose, Dr. Fajutagana said that institutions can ease each other’s burdens through collaboration and resource-sharing and encourage the free flow of ideas between their faculty members and students not only for academic purposes but also for peer support.
Hazel Juris Domingo | Published in Healthscape Special COVID-19 Issue No. 12
