Sustainability, professional development and evolution of healthcare were discussed as Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) held its Building Capacity in Healthcare Professions symposium.
The two-day event was organised by WCM-Q’s Institute for Population Health with the collaboration with the divisions of pre-medical education and admissions.
The event featured workshops that allowed in-depth study of topic, along with lectures by medical and healthcare experts.
The aim of the symposium was to demonstrate to the delegates that continuous learning and improvement are the basis for capacity building.
Subjects for the workshops were varied, and included Peter Martin, the interim chair of graphic design at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, discussing the impact that design has on the development of healthcare, and WCM-Q’s Dr Ravinder Mamtani and Dr Sohaila Cheema leading a discussion about lifestyle medicines.
Other workshops covered a systems approach to capacity building and lifelong learning by Dr William Bozeman from University of Central Florida, social media research and practice in health by Dr Luis Luque and Ingmar Weber from the Qatar Computing Research Institute. From WCM-Q, Dr Alan Weber spoke about narrative medicine and Maha Elnashar and Huda Abdelrahim focused on cultural competence.
Dr Mamtani said, “We are interested in supporting programmes and activities that can help Qatar move forward and that’s a commitment we have given to Qatar and its healthcare practitioners. I think that one of the most important lessons to have come out of the symposium was the ever greater need for inter-professional collaboration and lifelong learning.”
Dr Javaid Sheikh, dean, WCM-Q, spoke about developing innovation in the training of healthcare professionals, and the megatrends like climate change, non-communicable diseases, and urbanisation, that are impacting healthcare – and the need for healthcare education to evolve to address those trends.