Qatar University’s (QU’s) Health Interprofessional Education Programme with the Interprofessional Education Students’ Association in Qatar in collaboration with the UK Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE) collaborated on the first international virtual debate on ‘Whether governments should make Covid-19 vaccine mandatory’.
The two-hour event had around 200 local QU and international attendees with more than 780 views on QU YouTube channel. The event started with an overview of the association’s vision, mission and activities presented by the IPE Student Association president and QU third year medical student Jawaher Baraka.
QU vice president for Medical and Health Sciences and College of Medicine (CMED) dean Dr Egon Toft, welcomed the audience, participants and judges. CAIPE chair Dr Richard Pitt explained that the organisation has been a global leader for over 30 years in the promotion and development of IPE and works to improve quality in education, practice and the organisation and delivery of services.
The debate was moderated by the former president of the IPE Student Association Sawsan AlMukdad. Members of the affirmative side from Qatar included QU Pharmacy student Ayesha Ahmed, QU Medical student Menatalla Said and University of Calgary- Qatar – Nursing student Sharon Benjy.
Members of the negative team from the UK included King’s College London (KCL) Nursing student Alisha Khan, Medical student Konstantinos Lioulois, and London School of Economics student Sally Berry. The winning team was determined after receiving the votes from both the judges (70%) and the audience (30%). The judges included: QU CMED associate professor of Microbiology and Immunology Dr Susu Zughaier, senior scholar from WHO Collaborating Centre on Health Workforce Planning & Research (Dalhousie University) Dr John Gilbert, and Glasgow Caledonian University associate dean for Learning, Teaching, and Quality from School of Health and Life Sciences and CAIPE board member Dr Nichola McLarnon. The affirmative team from Qatar was announced the winner at the end of the debate.
QU-CPH assistant dean for Student Affairs and QU Health Chair of Interprofessional Education programme Dr Alla El-Awaisi, in her concluding remarks, thanked both teams for representing their countries well, congratulated Qatar team for winning.
Amira Chaudhry, CAIPE board member and Student Working Group lead gave the closing remarks. Konstantinos Lioulois from the negative team said: ‘It was a great pleasure for us to participate and to be given the opportunity to showcase our hard work, professionalism and excitement to represent CAIPE. ”
A screenshot of the virtual debate.
