June 2014: Student Visit

There had been three previous trips to Aksum so far. Most recently, two students and a member of

Bart’s staff visited Axum to strengthen the partnership in December 2013/January 2014. They had

focused on forming and empowering a first student committee for the partnership and running first

online tutorials with senior clinicians (and other students) back in London. They had also assessed the

feasibility of electives at Aksum (see previous report).

JULY AIMS

 Evaluating the success and structure of the Aksum student committee

 Assessing the online tutorial system, engaging staff members & planning curriculum alignment

 Running online tutorials lead from tutors/students in UK and Aksum - running post-tutorial

feedback surveys

 Introducing/ensuring access, understanding and use of Simply Finals resources

 Engaging 1st and 2nd year students more, as most engagement has been with 3rd year students

 Deliver academic English advice/assistance for oral and written communication

 Deliver literature/research advice and assistance (and an online tutorial with Sofia Sisay)

 Consider expanding on Esther's work on Aksum students' career plans when they graduate

 Hoping to secure further donations of clinical equipment from the Barts clinical skills centre

 Assessing the progress of the partnership and investigating future areas for

optimisation/development

AKSUM STUDENT COMMITTEE

We had a successful student committee meeting in my first week at Aksum. It was attended by four

original members and three new recruits from the first and second years. They had not been active or

held any committee meetings since the formation of the committee in December 2013. I asked why this was and what they thought could be done to improve things. They seemed clear on their roles and the potential function of the committee. Tesfay, the President of the committee felt there was a lack of

commitment. They all thought they needed more coordination and meeting schedules. To solve this we appointed Bereket as the keen new Secretary, who would call meetings. They agreed to try to meet at a set time (on the first Friday of every month at 6pm (12 Mishit Ethiopian time)). We thought as a basic aim that these meetings would generate upcoming topics that they might want covered in online

tutorials over the next couple of months and that it might be feasible to organise sessions once or twice a month. We also discussed team building and social meetings (dinner, football, chess, swimming) and appointed Geretsakan as Social Secretary to organise these. Also that involvement with staff members would be helpful. Also any Skype or video conference opportunities would be positive.

Aksum-Barts Partnership Committee Meeting Minutes 4/7/14

PLAN

 Committee to meet once a month, on the first Friday of every month at 6pm (12 Mishit

Ethiopian time!) – Bereket to act as Secretary (organise and take notes for these meetings)

 Teambuilding and social gatherings of the committee eg dinner together, game evenings,

football, trips to the pool – Geretsadkan to be Social Secretary (organise and invite!)

 Greater involvement with staff in Aksum – minutes to be shared and invitations sent for

committee meetings

 Committee members from all years to communicate upcoming curriculum topics and what

tutorials might be useful over the coming two months for each year group

 Feedback on tutorials to be shared with tutors running future tutorials

 To trail running Skype (projected) at same time as MedicineAfrica tutorial – needs permission

from IT services to download onto Aksum computers

 Students and staff to run tutorials from Aksum

 CDMA drives applied for in new budget, will be available as back up for when internet fails

 Research – proposal being prepared on the Research Thematic Areas of the Health Science

College, to coincide with the Community Based Education module – proposal to be finalised by

September 2014. Student research coordinators to assist with finalising proposal and coordination of student involvement.