http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article618627.ece R&D neglected in Muslim countries By RIYADH: ABDUL HANNAN TAGO ARAB NEWS STAFF
Published: Apr 27, 2012 00:47 Updated: Apr 29, 2012 16:55 A doctor at King Saud University said yesterday that from 700 to 1700, the Muslim world produced many of history's finest scientists and technologists. Sultan Meo said that although the light of knowledge had largely been extinguished from the Muslim world, it survived, and indeed flourished, elsewhere. Meo was talking at the concluding session of the five-day Saudi International Medical Education Conference (SIMEC2012) organized by the College of Medicine at Imam University in Riyadh. In his presentation on science and medical education in the Muslim world, Meo said the Muslim world has a vast geographical spread of approximately 1.27 billion people. In the Muslim world, most countries have significant natural resources. He said annual spending on science, research and development in Muslim countries is 0.2 percent of the gross national product, with only a few Muslim countries shifting toward a culture of scientific knowledge, and adopting new tools of science and technology in general and medical education in particular. He claimed that in the Muslim world biomedical and medical education journals are substantially less in number compared to those produced by universities in other countries and many of these journals do not have online access or indexed in major bibliographical databases. The majority of indexed journals, however, do not have a stable presence in the popular Pub-Med database. There are numerous factors that have been cited to explain the current status of science and medical education in Muslim countries. These factors include lack of research, scientists, medical educationists and insufficient integration within the international scientific community. Moreover, most of the Muslim countries do not have national science policies based on their local needs and available resources, he said. Discussing the perception of Saudi female higher education students using Web-based videoconferencing, Eman T. Mechana said there is a lack of studies focusing on Web-based videoconferencing applications in the context of Saudi female higher education. “We conducted a case study among two groups of Saudi female medical students in King Abdul Aziz University to explore their perceptions of a lesson when delivered via Web videoconferencing and how do real time communications through Breeze change the learning and teaching environment and activities. The perceptions of the two lecturers were also explored,” she added. Breeze was used to mediate two lessons, one for 15 undergraduate students and another for 15 postgraduate students. A number of data-gathering techniques were used including questionnaires, interviews and observations to gather responses and a qualitative approach of thematic analysis was used to identify themes in the perceptions of students and lecturers, she said. This study represented a shift from what these female students are used to in terms of interaction with a male lecturer. The shift took the form of increasing the perceived quality and deeper interaction throughout the lesson compared with traditional environments. The study is in favor of using Breeze in Saudi female higher education, she said. Mahmoud Mahmoud at Al-Imam University, who spoke on improving the patient experience starting from medical education, said patient satisfaction was important. He said the patient’s experience starts with his expectation before his visit and subsequent appointment call. The next steps include reception, investigation, examination and diagnosis through to the dispensing of medicine and leaving the place with a next appointment order or a cure. Patients rarely remember or talk about the rational, functional benefits received during a visit to a health service provider, he said. Therefore, outstanding patient experiences must be planned and predictable, not random and occasional, and this can be achieved through analyses of patient experience at each stage of the visit. Talking on the Cynefin framework as an approach for change management in undergraduate medical education, Ayesha Abdullah from Peshawar Medical College in Pakistan said over the past 40 years the landscape of medical profession has witnessed massive changes in medical education and societal expectations from the profession. One such change, the shift from a conventional system of medical education to an integrated system offers promising outcomes but the journey could be tricky, she said. a.. -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 7 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 769 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! 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