Health Professions Education Centre (HPEC), Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
BICC Contact Information
BICC leader: Teresa Pawlikowska
BICC members: Prof Jan Illing, Prof Walter Eppich, Mr Gareth Edwards and Mrs Mary Smyth.
BICC Background
HPEC is a member of BEME and supports systematic reviewing in health professions education at RCSI across all of their multi-professional schools and multi-national campuses. HPEC was elected to one of nineteen international BEME International Collaborating Centres (BICC). The RCSI BICC at HPEC contribution to the BEME Collaboration includes:
- developing, producing and managing BEME reviews
- promoting the creation and use of BEME reviews to inform medical and health professions education
- supporting stakeholders in the identification and construction of relevant topics for new reviews
- creating an awareness of and promoting a culture of best evidence education amongst educators, researchers, academic medical professionals and other stakeholders
- reviewing incoming BEME protocols from around the world
- developing and chairing the BEME Education and Training Committee
HPEC RCSI BICC has a database of multinational, multi-professional faculty across the RCSI group; this includes faculty in RCSI Dublin, Schools in Malaysia and Dubai, a University in Bahrain, and teaching hospitals in Ireland. A number of faculty members have experience in systematic reviewing including Cochrane reviews and we have a close collaboration with dedicated librarians. This database enables RCSI BICC to tap into a valuable range of professionals to engage in reviewing BEME protocols as necessary.
RCSI BICC Primary Contacts
Teresa Pawlikowska (BEME Education Committee Chair), BSc (Hons) MB BS, M.Sc. (Hons), MRCP, DRCOG; Professor of Health Professions Education | Health Professions Education Centre (HPEC) ([email protected])
Teresa Pawlikowska is the inaugural Director of the Health Professions Education Centre appointed in June 2013. She is a GP and an experienced medical educator and researcher having previously held posts in the UK at UCL and Warwick Medical Schools. Additionally she has designed and delivered a variety of medical education programmes in diverse environments abroad as part of EU and World Bank projects. She has also devised and developed research methods in medical education courses at Master’s and PhD levels. Teresa has taught and researched (and practiced) the medical consultation throughout her career, which was also the subject of her PhD registered at SHE, Maastricht. Areas of expertise: curriculum development, reform and alignment, inter-professional education, cultural sensitivity, integrated consultation and communication skills (including simulation), research methodology. Prof Pawlikowska is currently involved with international colleagues in a BEME systematic review on literature relating to consultation skills of medical students entitled “A Systematic Review of the Psychometric and Edumetric Properties of Assessment Tools for Communication and Consultation in Medicine for Undergraduates”.
Main areas of interest/expertise
RCSI BICC at HPEC main areas of interest are
- Expertise in faculty professional development – the Postgraduate Diploma in Health Profession Education and Peer Observation of Teaching, etc.
- Research in Health Professions Education, in the following themes:
Integrated consultations skills
Technology Enhanced Learning
Professionalism
Student teaching and learning- transitions and preparedness to practice
Underpinned by a multi-professional and multi-cultural environment, and a foundation of Best Evidence in Medicine (utilising and producing reviews)
Other areas of expertise include:
- Transitions: includes transitions from medical student to doctor, junior to senior clinician and the transition from overseas qualified clinician to a new host country.
- The clinical learning environment: this theme focuses on Interprofessional Education, clinical supervision, wellbeing and incudes negative behaviours and experiences of workplace bullying in the clinical environment.
- Simulation: particular focus on debriefing and feedback.
- Realist synthesis: a literature review process that aims to develop a theory to explain how an intervention works.
Contributions made to BEME
- Currently there is one BEME review in progress at the RCSI due for submission and publication. An international collaboration involved in “A systematic Review of the Psychometric and Edumetric Properties of Assessment Tools for Medical Consultation for Undergraduates” (Prof Pawlikowska PI and colleagues from Maastricht University, Warwick University and the University of Antwerp)
- RCSI has produced Guide 51 Flannery/Uygur published in 2019 "A Best Evidence in Medical Education Systematic Review to determine the most effective teaching methods that develop reflection in medical students"
- Development and production of new BEME reviews
- Promoting BEME reviews to inform medical and health professions education
- Supporting stakeholders in the review process
- Fostering a culture of best evidence medical education
- Providing mentorship
- Contributing to BEME committee remits