Proceedings of the 9th Annual Dubai Medical Education Symposium 2015

The 9th Annual Dubai Medical Education Symposium was a professional development opportunity for medical educators, held at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Academic Medical Center Auditorium at the Dubai Healthcare City under the patronage of Haj Saeed Ahmed Al Lootah. The ceremony was formally inaugurated by, Mr. Saleh Saeed Lootah, Vice Chairman, Executive Board, Dubai Medical College on May 30, 2015. This symposium has been hosted annually by Dubai Medical College (DMC) since 2005, as an official platform for disseminating knowledge on current medical education-related topics in the region. Being the first medical college in the country, the college has taken the lead to foster educators as its social accountability initiative through the Medical Research Fund. The goals of the symposium are dissemination of best practices in medical education, professional development of doctors and healthcare professionals and fostering research and scholarship. Speakers from across the globe shared significant insights into the medical education. The abstracts of the speakers’ presentations and selected research papers have been compiled in this supplement. The key highlight of this supplement is the original article by Prof. Munder El Doori portraying the novel concept of Acute Limb Ischemia in the background of “Snow White and the Seven P’s”. Prof. Mohammed Galal explains the effects of learning styles on student learning, while Prof. Muscat Baron discusses the value of reflection in medical education. Prof. Parveen discusses the value of day to day life of a student in caring for patients and Dr. Tanzeem Raza explores the importance of culture in moulding their careers. Dr. Dima Abdel Mannan puts forward a whole new perspective on the divide between digital natives and digital immigrants in the millennial era while Prof. Hossam Hamdy focuses on workplace-based assessment. Prof. Fatehia highlights what the clinicians need to know about the elusive IgG4 disease. Prof. Mike discusses rheumatic diseases and Dr. Gloria provides her take on pediatric surgery in Germany. The theme for this year’s symposium included a research-based competition where prizes were distributed to the winners with exceptional research abstracts. All research papers were reviewed by reviewers for scientific soundness. Reviewers included experts from the fields of basic science, health science and medical education. Changes were made based on the reviewers’ recommendations. Out of 28 research papers received, 10 were selected to be included in this supplement, based on originality. The educational research papers touched upon curricular changes in medical and pharmaceutical education, roles of general education, information literacy and use of technology and standardized patients. In the field of health science, topics range from glomerular pathology and drug utilization to HIV.