The Network: TUFH 2009 Conference in Amman, Jordan

We would like to inform you about the International Conference that The Network: TUFH will organise in Amman, Jordan from October 10 to 15, 2009. The conference theme is Achieving Quality in Health Care: Challenges for Education, Research and Service Delivery. Our conference host is Center for Educational Development, University of Jordan.The conference will be followed by a post-conference excursion to the Faculty of Medicine at Mu'tah University in Karak, Jordan on October 16, 2009.

Deadline for early registration and submission of abstracts/mini-workshop and didactic session proposals is July 1, 2009! More information is available at www.the-networktufh.org/conference. Please do not hesitate to contact us at secretariat@network.unimaas.nl in case you would like to receive more details.

Best regards,

Pauline Vluggen and Yoka Cerfontaine
The Network: TUFH Office

Future of the Skills Training Weblog

Skills training is on the agenda of many schools of health professionals (especially for doctors, nurses, midwives), all over the world. Exchange of materials, ideas and experiences is very much needed. A Taskforce, creating a format for such an exchange, chairing the problems and possible solutions for setting up skills training programmes/skills labs could be a big help. During the Network: TUFH Conference in Kampala (September 2007) the Maastricht skills lab, where this new training method was started in the seventies, was asked to set up a weblog/website, to facilitate this exchange of information.

In this weblog we offer the opportunity to:
* Exchange experiences and new developments (News/innovations)
* Ask for- and offer help with all kinds of problems and questions (Questions/answers)

Moreover we try to underpin skills training by offering information and literature about the following topics:

* Why systematic skills training is needed (why);
* How skills training developed from a crazy idea into a well accepted and underpinned skills lab method (history);
* The main starting points and steps of this method (Skills Lab Method); and
* More detailed information about:
- Training of communication skills
- Training of medical technical/nursing skills
- Use of simulated patients
- Assessment

These topics will be briefly introduced. For those of you who are interested in more in-depth information a chapter about this topic, including relevant references and links, will be available soon. For those of you who are interested in the “full story” of the Skills Lab Method, the whole Pdf file can be downloaded. On top of that information will be made accessible on written, well illustrated training materials and others.

This weblog will be built up step by step. We intend to finalise the first draft of all chapters before the next Network meeting in Columbia (September 2008), but we can’t guarantee we will succeed in it.

To do so we need your support, comments and input!
Each year another participant of the Task Force “Skills Training” will be responsible for keeping the weblog up to date.

ASkTHEM

ASkTHEM (Affordable Skills Training & Health Education Material) is a community website dedicated to sharing ideas for Affordable Skills Training & Health Education Material.

The website uses a Wiki system to share ideas for models and methods used in health professions education with an emphasis on SkillsTraining. Sharing means that you can not only find ideas here (and use them at your convenience), but you may also render your thoughts as feedback or create pages presenting your own ideas for the rest of the community to use them.

Welcome to the Blog of the Network: TUFH Taskforce Skillstraining!

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the new Weblogs of the Network: TUFH Taskforces!

Weblogs (also known as "blogs") are easy-to-use websites, where anyone can quickly post thoughts and information, interact with others, and more. With these new weblogs we encourage Network: TUFH members and others to share news and interesting materials or to post comments in reaction to what others have written. A weblog can also provide links to other, relevant web pages. With this helpful new way of interacting on the internet you can learn from and reach many colleagues across the world.

The Network: TUFH Office and Taskforce members will be posting reports and messages to these weblogs on a regular basis. If you are a member of The Network: TUFH you are invited to also post messages on these blogs. To get clearance to do so, please contact The Network: TUFH office at: secretariat@network.unimaas.nl . Otherwise, everyone is free to add comments in response to these postings without having to sign up first.

We wish you a lot of fun with these new Network: TUFH taskforces’ weblogs!
Best wishes,

Pauline Vluggen and Yoka Cerfontaine
The Network: TUFH Office