Medical education units

To assist faculty members in the planning, execution, and evaluation of teaching-learning activities many medical schools around the world have established medical education units or centers. The more advanced units are helping other medical schools by means of direct support in the latter's curriculum development efforts or through training of personnel who would man the latter's own units. In 1969 the WHO arranged a network of teacher training centers to facilitate this type of cooperation. There are other networks and direct bilateral collaboration schemes as well, especially in the Americas and Europe. For the medical schools in the Southeast Asian region the WHO has designated three advanced units (at the Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, the University of New South Wales in Australia, and the University of Sri Lanka) as regional teacher training centers. In spite of the efforts of these units the development of medical education units in the Southeast Asian medical schools is still far from satisfactory. This is partly caused by a lack of information regarding the objectives and organizations of such units. The following presentation tries to fill this gap.