Participants during the regional teacher training course on the subject of ethics hosted by Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar.
DOHA: Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) has hosted a regional teacher training course on the subject of ethics. It was held in collaboration with the Unesco Office for the Gulf States and Yemen, Unesco Beirut and the Qatar National Commission for Unesco .
Twenty-five participants from Qatar and the wider region convened at WCM-Q for the four-day Regional Ethics Teacher Training Course, which is designed to advance pedagogical capacity for ethics teaching and improve the quality of ethics education around the world.
The course forms part of a multifaceted capacity-building strategy designed to help Unesco Member States address ethical issues arising from rapid progress in medical and life sciences.
It was opened by Dr. Ibrahim bin Saleh Al Nuaimi, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education; Dr Khaled Machaca, WCM-Q Associate Dean for Research, and Dr Anna Paolini, Director of the Unesco Doha office.
The course, which was jointly hosted by WCM-Q’s Division of Continuing Professional Development and the Research Division, taught participants the principle methods and methodologies for the teaching of ethics, identified key learning resources, and provided assessment and feedback on the teaching skills of each participant, under the guidance of experienced teachers.
The highly interactive course featured lectures, group work, individual demonstrations, and group discussions, led by trainers of the Unesco bioethics team.
Among the topics addressed by the course were patient rights, privacy, confidentiality and informed consent; the UN Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights; dignity and ethics for professional educators; and bioethics teaching in the Arab World.
Dr Thurayya Arayssi, WCM-Q Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education and Continuing Professional Development, said, “Ethical behaviour demonstrates our commitment as physicians, researchers and healthcare professionals to always act in the very best interests of patients and research subjects. As such, a sound understanding and a solemn appreciation of ethics is absolutely fundamental to the correct practice of medicine and biomedical research ”.
Dr Anna Paolini, Director for Unesco Doha office, said, Ensuring the equitable distribution of the benefits of science as well as ‘health wealth’ to address inequalities within and among nations, is a central challenge to achieving the 2030 Development Agenda.
