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EDITORIAL FOR ASMANET October 1997       Provided by:         avec le support de : Previous editos : clik here   Asthmology : from basic science to clinical management Professeur Philippe Godard Clinique des Maladies Respiratoires Hôpital Arnaud de Villeneuve EAACI and the Montpellier (France) University Medical school co-sponsored the 1997 Summer Institute which focused on Asthmology : from basic science to clinical management The old school of medicine, founded over 800 years ago to promote tolerance among physicians of different religious origin around the Mediterrannean sea, was very proud to welcome attendants from all around the world, mainly from European countries and the "Mare Nostrum" area. The Summer Institute consisted of 8 half-day sessions distributed over a 6-days time period. Morning lectures took place in the famous Theatrum Anatonicum while afternoon workshops were housed by the modern Arnaud de Villeneuve Hospital. Participants and course organisation With 75 pre-registrations, the Institute crowded a team of close to 50 participants, which is quite remarquable given the very specialized scope of the lectures. All students paid their dues. Some recieved grants from pharmaceutical companies to pay the fees. EAACI proposed 8 grants for the summer course but recieved too few applications due to the lack of communication of this generous support. How did the participants heard of the summer course ? essentially through the Internet (10%), EAACI congress (20%), local national societies (15%) and their hierachy (30%). A larger attendance could have been gathered with better press coverage. However, even if media appear to be numerous, the head of the department remains the best person to give advice Time sheet signed by the participants and written tests during the lectures showed that attendance to the lecture during the whole summer session has been excellent despite very strong competition from sea side (weather in august is excellent for sun bathing too in Montpellier).

Continuous Medical Education (CME)

The whole summer course was designed and ran in accordance with the EAACI guidelines for continuing medical education as published by Munksgaard (Allergy 1997; 52:490-503). The position paper, written by S. Buscaglia, A.G. Palma-Carlos and G.W. Canonica can be read from the Asmanet (see cmeguide.pdf   370Ko) with special permission from the publisher.

The methodology can be summerized as follows :

1. Each course was designed from a simple and written set of objectives,
2. MCQ (Multiple Choices Questionnaire) was filled up by each student before the class and after the class in order to focus attention on key issues while evaluating his/her progress,
3. Abundant course materials was handed to the students, including reprints of key papers, a paperback book and Asthmology (en Français :-), abstracts ...   Eventually, students asked for more documentation ! (see eval-97.html : more printed hand-out )
4. The last session of the summer course was devoted to a final on-line evaluation test given by the teacher of each course who then gave the correct expert answer for each MCQ

Results of the whole process can be analysed in details on the Asmanet server (see summer97.html ). They are very instructive.

Financial support

This Summer Institute has been made possible thanks to generous support :

• Schering-Plough and Rhône-Poulenc Rorer offered educational grants
• Pharmacia Upjohn, Promedica-Chiesi and 3M Santé helped to make the course more confortable
• Last but not least, Smith Kline and Beecham organised the very successfull closing session by providing the on-line interactive system which captured in real-time the answers of the students for each of the numerous MCQ reviewed by the teacher. It was excellent and should be more extensively used in the future (see the results at eval-97.html )

To sum up, designing, planning and operating such a Summer Institute is a tough job but very rewarding. With more precise rules, EAACI could help in making easier the whole process but the most important rule is to maintain the warm and fruitfull climate of collaboration which has existed this year. The result was excellent, as expressed by the hudge ovation of the students at the final session.

Ph. Godard

.EAACICongrès Conçue et réalisée par: Michel Godard (at) Top
Date de création: 1997- Dernière mise à jour: 23/07/98
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