KIIT School of Public Health (KSPH) organized an online Faculty Development Programme (FDP) 2021 in the niche area “Excellence in Public Health and Hospital Administration” from 21st to 26th June 2021 under the theme, “Exploring Self: A New Paradigm in Education”. A total of 15 sessions were conducted with an aim to improve the teaching and research skills of the faculty and other interested participants. Eminent speakers from both academic and industrial backgrounds shared their expertise to the 33 participants from KIIT School of Public Health and other institutions across the nation.
On the first day, welcoming the guests, experts, faculty and PhD Scholars, Prof. Sudhir Kumar Satpathy, Director, KSPH elaborated the objective of conducting this FDP. The 1st session was taken by Prof. Sanjay Zodpey, Vice President – Academics, Public Health Foundation of India, New Delhi & Director – Indian Institute of Public Health, Delhi. Speaking on the topic, ‘Health Professional Education in 21st Century’, he concluded his talk with 30/70 paradox, which states that 30% of what we teach is redundant and 70% of the way we teach is redundant. In the 2nd session, Prof. M. Mariappan, who is the Chairperson of Centre for Hospital Management, School of Health Systems Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, delivered a talk on ‘Continuing Public Health and Hospital Management Education in Public Health Emergencies/Pandemics – A Paradigm Shift in Education’. The last session of the day was taken by Dr. Anil Kumar, Addl. Director General of Health Services, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare; Government of India on ‘Management of Covid-19 Vaccination Campaigns’. The session was very informative, interactive and comprehensive covering almost every aspect of roll-out of the COVID vaccination programme in the country.
On the second day of the FDP, Prof. Tapan Kumar Jena from IGNOU, New Delhi delivered a talk on the topic ‘Pedagogical approach to improve online education to achieve the desired competency among the students’. He discussed about distance learning, educational theory (eg. Guided didactic interaction) and different learning domains like cognitive learning, psychomotor domain of learning and how to incorporate these to build competency in students. It was followed by a session on ‘Developing health system resilience for enhanced preparedness and response capacity to tackle the current and future public health emergencies’ by Prof. Dr. Jugal Kishore, Director & Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Vardhman Mahavir Medical College & Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi. The last session was taken by Dr. Sanghamitra Pati, Director & Scientist – G, ICMR-Regional Medical Research Centre, Bhubaneswar on ‘Improving basic and advanced research skills among the public health professionals and hospital managers’. She mentioned different ways of research, importance of proper research formulation, data and its analysis. The Q&A session was very interactive where many faculties and students participated.
In third day’s session, Prof. Dr. Sidhartha Satpathy, Professor and Head Dept. of Hospital Administration, AIIMS, New Delhi, delivered his talk on the theme ‘Professionalism, Ethics & Values in Hospital Administration’ wherein he talked about professional theories and its significance in hospital administration. This was followed by a session on ‘COVID-19: Current status, lessons learnt and way forward’ by Prof. Dr. Sanjay K Rai, Centre for Community Medicine, AIIMS, New Delhi & National President – Indian Public Health Association. Last session of the day was taken by Prof. Sushanta Tripathy, Chairperson of KSOM MBA Program in Supply Chain Management & Professor in School of Mechanical Engineering, KIIT-DU. He delivered a talk on ‘Health Sector’s Efficiency during Covid-19 and Barriers of Implementation of BlockChain Technology in the Health Sector’.
On the fourth day, Prof. Marc Van der Putten, Professor of Global Health, Founder TU Graduate Global Health Programs, Faculty of Public Health, Thammasat University, Thailand spoke on “Globalization and Shifting Paradigms in Higher Education”. He explained about forces (like globalization, educational reforms, socioeconomic landscape, and technological innovations), factors (like universal access to higher education, rights-based higher education, problem solving), and paradigms (like democratization of knowledge, global knowledge society, and excellence revisited) of higher education. In the next session, Prof. Suprava Pattnaik, Dean, School of Electronics Engineering, KIIT-DU delivered her talk on ‘Digital technology in delivering public health and hospital management education and training in academic institutions’.
Fifth day session started with Dr. Santosh Kumar, Director-Administration, Ruban Memorial Hospital, Patliputra, Patna and NABH Assessor, on ‘Improving partnership with the hospitals and health care organizations for enhancing academic program in hospital management – strategies, options and means’. The second session was delivered by Prof. Low Wah Yun– President, Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health (APACPH). He spoke on ‘South-South collaboration in public health education and research – strength, opportunity and challenges’.
On the last day, Dr. Saurabh Sharma, Senior Advisor – Immunization, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. took a session on ‘Newer development of vaccine research’. He discussed the benefits of vaccines, development of vaccines (different phases of trial and its significance) and how phenomenal is the development of covid 19 vaccine. The last session was taken by Dr. Bidyut Sarkar, University of Manitoba, Canada, who spoke on ‘Research skill sets for emerging global health issues in post Covid-19 pandemic era’. In his talk, he shared attributes of a good researcher and mentioned some of the skills a public health professional must possess.
The valedictory session of FDP was held on 26th June 2021 chaired by Prof. S. K. Satpathy, Director, KSPH. Associate Professor Pratap Kumar Jena, the coordinator of the FDP 2021, briefed about the FDP planning and its successful implementation at KSPH. The report of the deliberation of FDP, day and session wise, was presented by Mrs. Purnima Bhoi, Faculty Associate, KSPH. Remarks of the faculty on the usefulness of the current FDP and future modifications, if any, was also sought during this session. Finally, the vote of thanks was extended by Mrs. Itishree Mohanty, Faculty Associate, KSPH.