Maxillofacial system (MFS) determines facial beauty of an individual and interplays as an “intersection” for many organ systems of human body. All facial expressions, cues, gestures and eye contact, phonation, articulation and resonance which are the essential pillars of non verbal and verbal communication, fall in the domain of MFS.
Maxillofacial trauma represents the major burden in ER of hospitals across the globe. ABCs of any trauma involves securing Airway and stabilization of Cervical Spine, ensuring Breathing and Circulation. Management of maxillofacial trauma requires accurate knowledge of structure and function of this area. Maxillofacial System module is designed to deliver the structure and function of maxillofacial system with clinical perspective. Whatever you learn in this module will have significance in your future clinical practice.
MFS module will be your first module which will be conducted by a common pool of facilitators, without subject boundaries, designated for this year. All the forthcoming modules will be facilitated by the similar common pool of respective years.
I have tried to create a forum, for the students and faculty, where both can interact with each other. Please feel free to discuss your ideas, experiences and suggestions. Your valuable feedback will enable us re-organize and improve this module.
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There is no problem in module conducted by common pool of facilitators without subject boundry. The problem arises when one facilitator is allocated for a particular group 4 whole of the module. Ofcorse its not possible for whole class to share common knowlege at a time but still, facilitators should be rotated. Secondly, particularly in this module, lack of sequence is noted in the scedule, which is unfortunatly the first time. In anatomy its better to study in a sequence, eg starting from the cranial to caudal portion, or starting from superficial to deep structures or vice versa. Here eg we studied bones first, then we studied gland, then fascia, now we are coming back to muscles and blood supply all mixed, then physio, then we will go again cranially towards tongue, then back to muscles of the neck. The easy way to solve this problem is that next time consult klm clinical anatomy before making scedule. This book has perfect sequence of explaination of structures, starting superficial to deep.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about the sequence. As a matter of fact a lot of effort was made to reorganize the content in clinical perspective. Instead of delivering the content in regular sequence where we start from superficial structures and go to deeper structures and go from superior to inferior things were organized in a sequence which resembles real life situations. Different clinical presentation were considered with which patients present to the clinics. content relevant was then organized according to those presentations and not in the traditional sequence in anatomy books. I think Dr Saeed Shafi can further elaborate this point.
ReplyDeleteAssalamoalaikum,
ReplyDelete--The module was very well-paced. There were enough SDLs to allow for on-campus studying and not a lot of at-home burden, which was a relief after the hectic neuro module, so thank you for that :)
--Agree with the above comment re instructors. Obviously there are variations, and some are better and/or different than others. And that's what renders the 'same-instructor-same-group' theory unfair. They should be circulated throughout the groups so every student gets a chance to learn from every instructor.
The instructor who has conducted the best SGD in my opinion is Dr. Shazia.
--The lectures by Dr. Arshad were very informative, as usual.
--Objectives were given for every case and sgd, and I speak for the entire class when I say we truly do appreciate that. It's important for us to have an outline of what we should study. In this module, we had to use different books to gather all the information i.e. Snell, KLM, and Last together because some information was available in one and not the other. So kudos for making us search and work, helps in the learning process.
That's all. I merely wanted to give the feedback after the chastizing we received in class today for being apathetic :)
Thank you.
What I felt that students don’t feel that they are part of the whole system. They feel their opinion is not voiced at a proper forum. The sole reason for making this blog was to make a forum where students can express their views and interact with the faculty even when they are not in the college. We had a very healthy discussion in the class about this whole process but a large group is not the right way to express ourselves because everyone can not contribute at the same time. I had to remind the class after 2-3 days of no activity online on the blog. Please feel free to share whatever you fell necessary to communicate and specially if you need some explanantion/clarification. All of us are in a learning phase and I am sure this collaboration is going to streamline and improve the whole process.
ReplyDeleteNothing is perfect and everything can be improved. I can not agree with you more on rotation of the facilitators and there will be rotation of the facilitators but we thought one activity should be completed by the same team as the facilitator will be familiar with the strengths and accomplishments of the group. If the following activity is a continuation of the previous it should be facilitated by the same team. New activates will be facilitated by the different group. Please feel free to contact Dr Saeed Shafi, myself and Dr Arshad for detail.
Dr Zafar I have one point regarding the facilitation. When the facilitator has a command on the subject he is much better off with the facilitation. Our facilitators lack the indepth knowledge. I can tell you that I learnt more from the ten minute interactive session, during attendance checking, that you did on the salivary glands than the SGD that we did on it. Atleast it made me realize that what I am studying will be applicable to my patients. Do you think all the facilitators will be of the same caliber? If you don’t have too many facilitators of the same quality why have you started it in the first place. I feel we have been taken for guinea pigs for experiments. If your experiments fail you can do an improved experiment on the next class.
ReplyDeleteAgree regarding the capability of facilitators. There are one of two who are extremely good , have a sound knowledge of the subject matter and actually know how to conduct an SGD vs a PBL.
ReplyDeleteThen there are one or two who honestly have no idea what they're doing, and I'm sure if we could vote them off, the entire class would do so.
I have no problem with the facilitator's method of conduction, or attitude, or if they make sure everyone is participating or not, but what I do have a problem with is the incompetency and lack of knowledge. Frankly, if the students have more of an idea of the topic than the facilitator, we will never be able to respect him/her regardless of how nice s/he may be.
And as for feedback, there are some facilitators that we have been saying are incompetent since Cell Module over a year ago, and surprisingly, they're still unleashing their ignorance on us.
Please forgive me if I sound harsh, but at the end of the day, we as students can tolerate a lot of things, but when we as a group feel that a certain individual has no idea of the subject matter at hand, then that instructor should not be telling us false information, at the least.
I like the module in a way that instead of covering chapters of the book things were arranged according its presentation but do we have to get rid of lectures. All of you keep telling us that we have to do things for ourselves and if we have to all the things then why we are here. I think lectures are excellent too. Dr Arshad and Radiology lectures were very good but who cares you people are going to do what you have already decided so what is the big deal.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous is right about the attitude of some facilitators. But ofcourse they cant be kicked out frm there jobs because they study less, but atleast they can be told about the feedback, and im sure the teachers we are talking about would instantly know that we are pointing out them. Secondly, when we are told to give feedback on certain aspect, we know that the people who are reading all this have a big heart, to digest all the criticism. And we also expect our teachers to improve for future, instead of getting angry on whole group for a mistake of one and saying that first you look at your own attitude instead of pointing out our mistakes.I agree that some days back when some students said that our facilitator reads from the book in the sgd, and has no knowledge. It was wrong. I am sure majority of the students dont mind that. but the thing we mind is that when some question is asked, even if it is of little importance,the facilitator should have guts to say that i dont know the answer and ill let u know later. For a matter of fact no one is perfect, but for me the person who welcomes all the criticism and trys to improve, is PERFECT. May be thats the biggest reason I chose shifa as my first priority. I appreciate all of you for doing so much for us.
ReplyDeletethank you
And thirdly yes,as anonymous said some times we feel as a subject for experiment. please try to bring some change in the present class first instead of implimenting it on the future class. Because they may have thoughts completely opposite from ours. Guinea pigs would be an inapropriate term, but it has a close similarity aswel. As we frequently hear this thing from our juniors that class of 2013 is only place for experiments. Even if we ignore what others say, but we cannot ignore what we feel. so please try to bring change for us aswell, instead for waiting for the other class to come.
ReplyDeleteI am in complete agreement with the comments about the quality of facilitation.I hope the people who are responsible for policy making wake up to the realities.
ReplyDeleteTeaching and learning are a 2way process. With each session both the teacher and student can find out ways to make each session work out better than the previous one. It’s the combined will of both parties. It’s not possible to divide the human body into tight compartments such as systems or regions. This is reflected in the changing format of reference books such as Gray’s Anatomy. Different books adopt different formats based on the author’s prior experiences. Teacher’s censure has a message for the people its meant for. I have sat with many groups and found on more than one occasion that save for a few most members of the group have not come prepared. On one occasion I was even mocked at. So if the facilitator who is ready to facilitate faces such an attitude then how much inspired will he be? Its unfortunate and it’s a no-win situation.
ReplyDeleteWonderful ideas reflect the intent to learn! There is no harm in rotating facilitators among different small groups, however many more learning strategies like JIGSAW OR Snowball effect can be applied for dissemination of knowledge& learning uniformly in whole class. All teachers/facilitators can't be at par, but we should take diversity as a positive stimulus for learning. The common pool of instructors is against the popular desire of instructor. I think it will take time to acclimatise them in new setting. The command on domain knowledge is very important for the facilitators, but even more important is the participation and motivation of the learner itself. If learner don't participate in learning process actively through intrinsic motivation, facilitator can't do anything. The concept of regional sequencing of MSF module is not consistent with the institutional policy. The curriculum is system based, patient centered and being delivered by case based technique predominantly. The content knowldge is primarily grounded in clinical context. All these considerations were thoroughly deliberated while finalizing the time table of MSF. We never ever thought of using our students as guinea pigs. The curricular changes are based on the collective wisdom of the faculty & students. unfortunately, we have only few advocates to this change process. Faculty & Students' feedback is most valuable tool to reshape future behavior, therefore all stakeholders are welcomed to give their honest opinion.
ReplyDeleteZainab thanks for your feedback. It’s a free forum, don't hesitate to write anything here. You all know that we have a big heart. Criticism is always healthy and it helps improve things. I asked Dr Saeed Shafi and Dr Arshad for their feedback on issues related to the facilitators. I think the points raised so far can easily be taken care of and as a matter of fact the rotation of the facilitators has already been planned. We need atleast 6-8 facilitators to run the SGD smoothly. You will agree with me that rapid turn over of the junior faculty is the main handicap regarding the quality of the facilitation. This new approach of making a pool (regardless of the parent department) of the facilitators was a step to overcome this issue.
ReplyDeleteI feel what is missing is the ownership of the system. Unless we own the system we are not going to give it 100% whether it’s the students or the faculty. Once we own it we both can work together and improve it.
One issue regarding the participation of the students in the planning has been discussed at different forums in detail. It was proposed many times that students should know what is happening. It was proposed that students’ representatives should attend the educational planning meetings and the faculty forum but I am not sure why it has not materialized as yet. The timings of these meetings and the on going educational activities of the students was one factor to take into account. May be someone from the medical education or administration can answer this question better.
I have tried to provide students, a forum, to discuss their problems. I think that sharing experience, feelings and thoughts might not equate to actually being a part of the actual planning but still will be a step near that. I am sure it will help develop a sense of ownership of the system.
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ReplyDeletelikhtay hein this blog is useless..we need to FIGHT for our rights..ye pakistan hai....LAATOO K BHOOT BAATOO SAY NAHE MAANTAy..
ReplyDeletesystem kharaab honay ki zimmadaari tehreek-e-talibaan nay qabool kar lee hai
ReplyDeletenahee taliban jhoot bool rahy hain. ic main USA ka haath hy...
ReplyDeleteThanks Anonymous for your feedback.
ReplyDeleteWe are highly impressed by all the comments .Most of the concerns of the students are being answered by our seniors and we do agree with them.We just want to clarify more of it. Regarding rotations of facilitators we try to cover one theme with same facilitator so that the whole concept of the theme is being delivered properly.Objections regarding reference from more than 1 book, we think that u r all adult learners and at all university levels we can't restrict ourself to just 1 book ,if someone wants to have a a thoroughh understanding of the subjectt.We are a bit perplexed about giving an outline of the topic. What's the differnce between objectives and outline?
ReplyDeleteWe don't agree with the concept of making students apart of planning and delivery system. The concept ofclass of 2013 being used as guinea pigs is not correct .We think that for the last 3 years Shifa is trying to bring the evolution and all those classes have been a part of it.It's a part of learning process to get acclimitized to changes .
The problem is why the instructors are being trained now.We think it is the misplanning and mistiming of this new system. If they had planned what positive and negative results this system would bring and had trained the instructors before the start of the year then no one would probably have any problem with the new system. Why the medical education department have to do these things in the middle of the year.
ReplyDeleteThe students and the instuctors are suffering the consequences of the negligence of the medical education department. Otherwise there would have been no criticism on the instructors. Whoever did this negligence should probably look in the mirror.......
ReplyDeleteThis college charges maximum fee and yet you people don't have enough faculty to run the integrated system. Don't you think you should have inducted more senior members in the faculty before starting. Now you have to rely of the new instructors.
ReplyDeleteAssalamualaikum
ReplyDeleteSo far as I know there is no change in the students' strength for the past couple of years. If we already know how many students there are and how many facilitators are required then we should have started this program when sufficient or rather I would say surplus senior faculty was there. Now I don't see some of the instructors who taught us in fiirst year I think they have left for good. On the other hand I also see some instructors who are still bashing students whith their non serious attitude and half cooked knowledge. What is feedback for if you are not going to do something about it. We did inform last year too about the poor quality of facilitation.
Thank you all for your feedback. I hope you will understand that this change over to the new system is not something recent. We have been doing this for the past three years now and most of the things have been streamlined.
ReplyDeleteAll of you have very raised very valid points and as promised I am going to highlight these at the right forum. Please remember that you are part of this system. I think this way our constructive criticism can help us improve the system further. Today’s wrap-up session was conducted by the facilitators who were involved with other groups during SGD.
Nice discussion going on here. I will add my 2 cents too. After going through the modules it seems that what to talk of ourselves even the facilitators are not onboard. They are either not interested or don’t want to give their best. As someone pointed out some of them have already left and the rest may are in a phase where they are looking for a better job. Has anyone investigated that what we are doing is right or not. I mean all the faculty says that our education department is doing a nice job. I don’t see anything nice. If you people are doing it for the last three years it does not show anywhere in the academic acitivies. When we go to the medical education department they say system is not going to change. We don’t want to go to the previous system but for God’s sake if you have a dedicated education department please do the things in a sane manner. Don’t make us suffer for your experiments. One of my cousins graduated last year and through out five years he kept complaining that policies are changing almost every term. Either its attendance or internal evaluation or anything else.
ReplyDeleteOnce they were not even sure how the examinations are going to be.
I agree with all the comments from our class fellows and some of the comments by the faculty. I enjoyed today’s SGD and we were very well prepared. Our facilitators appreciated it too and wrap up was done after rotation of the facilitators. I kind of enjoyed the SGD more than the wrap-up because it did not add anything new. We should have been given SDL in place of wrap-up. It gives us extended tea break. :) :)
ReplyDeleteYe sab bakwas hay bhaeyo. Kissi ne ye sab nahee parhna. likhi jao paaglo aur tyme zaya karo. Yahan kuch badalne wala nahe. Jab module me fail hogay to pata lage ga.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Shifa College of Experiments. We have highly non motivated, misdirected, sweetly in-experienced and cold blooded faculty. The college is proudly driven by multiple drivers in different directions and at different pace. Please understand , we don’t need your children. We will be happy if you take your children to some sensible college. We have enough nuts on the waiting list waiting to part of this prestigious institution.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Oh you can even get your fee back if you decide to leave.
I couldn’t help myself appreciating the above comment on how the college runs. All of us talk about the ownership. Where do you place us the instructors. We have been spoken to rudely, asked to leave and insulted by the seniors and the dean. We are aware that we do not know how to do the facilitation but the question is, does anyone know here? Can you ask this question from your seniors including the professors? Do they know how to do it? We are here to learn also. With present attitude I don’t see anyone staying here long. I have applied for couple of positions too and will jump ship as soon as I get a better job. Things are happening so fast that it is hard to keep pace. When seniors don’t understand what to do they will simply transfer the burden on us. Has anybody looked into the contribution of the seniors. Why they are here if everything has to be done by us. What is the hurry to transform overnight at an inhuman pace? Are we pressed and if yes then by whom? Whole system seems to be hijacked by the copy paste educationist who somehow appear to work against some of their medical education project deadlines that they have to submit. Other colleges have changed too. Actually they are actually enjoying it. They started it from the first year and gradually transforming the other classes at an achievable pace. One of my friend works in a medical college in the neighbor twin city IIMC and they are doing just fine. Unlike me he has a clear vision what he has to do for his future career. Here I will be another fish in the pond and to be more specific in a common pool.
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed the module so far. I can't say how will be the assessment but things went nicely. Themes were oraganized very well. The clinical relevance was something which made a lot sense to the themes and scinarios. Study guide was something i was not expecting. it seemed too brief although in the end it contained almost everything needed. I had problem copying it because the usb drives are not allowed in the college. I had to copy it in msword and mail it to my own address. Facilitators were good overall. This forum is an excellent addition. I hope people use it more efficiently. Kudos.
ReplyDeleteThank you all for the feedback. As promised I have taken a slot in the monthly faculty forum to present this blog on coming Tuesday. I will let you know about the exact timing tomorrow morning InshaAllah. Two students will also be part of that presentation. For the class representatives, please make sure you come prepared. Try interacting with your fellow students to have a collective wisdom of the class.
ReplyDeleteTake care.
aoa
ReplyDeleteThere are a few things i would like to mention here,
first of all time allotted for the module was good enough with enough sdls, which is a good thing.
The flow of the module, was a little out of place, for example we did triangles of neck before doing muscles of neck and that created alot of confusion while doing the triangles.
then about the whole facilitator issue raised here, all i'd like to say is that its true every facilitator has different capabilities and everything, but like everyone said earlier, a student is supposed to trust a facilitator/teacher for the information that they give us,we have had alot of wrongly conducted pbls and sgds.
pbls are a very good way of learning, but sadly very few of our facilitators know how to conduct a proper pbl, majority of them would at times sit there and not correct the students even when they are extremely wrong.i got the whole concept of what a pbl is and should be like when we had our pbl with dr arshad, he is one person who knows how to conduct a pbl session
also another thing i'd like to say is that during a 2 hour sgd, we should be given at-leat 30 mins to self study and then discuss in the group
all in all, iam a big fan of SGDs and PBLs, but we should have facilitators who know HOW to conduct these rightly,otherwise there is just no point of it.
radiology lectures and all the lectures by dr arshad were really good.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletelike a lot
ReplyDeletei think i might have a problem :(
ReplyDeleteThe feedback by the Instructors & students is an eye opener for the policy makers. PBL and SGD is not designed for transfer of information. These activities are learning oppertunities for the facilitators as well as well as students. There is absolutely no need to trust on the information transferred by the teacher. Student should challange that through their inquiry process. Faculty OR facilitators are supposed to provide scaffolding for construction of knowledge by the learners. They can provide road map to a learning process, but learning is an active process which needs active involvement of the learners. Sgds are not supposed to convey information to learners; these should be utilized to discuss conceptions; negotiate meanings of all that and ultimately reach a shared meaning on the "Topic of the day". In this process the facilitator may be a member of the group in discussion process OR just facilitating the process; but not more than that. I agree that newly inducted instructors don't have that much background knowledge required for effective facilitation; and should have at least four weeks time for orientation and observation of the existing system of the institution. The working environment for instructors at present seems to be stressful. I propose that SGDs should be conducted by the senior faculty and instructors should be restricted to the PBL and practicals sessions. The strength of senior & junior faculty should be enhanced both quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The ownership of curriculum should be transferred from the DEAN & Deptt of Medical Education to faculty & students.
ReplyDeleteNo body will listen to our suggestions sir saeed. It will be a revolution in shifa that the ownership of curriculum will be transferred to students and faculty. We have to strive hard.....We students and instructors have good idea how stubborn these people are.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. I hope this is just the beginning and you people are going to continue giving your valuable feedback to us. I would request the students' representatives who attended the meeting this morning to communicate the minutes to their class fellows.
ReplyDeleteMFS MODULE FEEDBACK (ABRIDGED)
ReplyDeletePOSITIVE POINTS ABOUT MODULE IDENTIFIED BY STUDENTS
• First week went by smoothly as objectives were given to the students
• Planned well in the beginning
• Sufficient number of SDLs were incorporated into the module before SGDs
• Students were guided by objectives which were well defined and they were able to assess their own learning
• Wrap up sessions especially those by Dr. Arshad were highly appreciated
NEGATIVE POINTS
• From the second week onwards students complained that subject matter was not following a sequence. They were disturbed by the fact that temporo-madibular joint and bones came in the end whereas due to their importance from exam point of view it should have been covered earlier.
• From second week onwards, objectives reached the students very late, usually in the evenings, a day prior to the SGD
• Students were not happy with the pooling of instructors. They prefer their SGDs to be taken up by subject specific facilitators so that their queries can be addressed there and then.
• Another point which may not be relevant to MFS was a station on genetic counseling in the IPE of neuro module as students felt they were not adequately trained to be tested on this skill.
mfs rocks <3 <3 :P
ReplyDelete