Short Intensive Training Of Trainers Course For New Participants On 14th And 15th November 2014, Mumbai

CEHAT conducted a short training of trainers programme for inducting new participants in the Integrating Gender in Medical Education project. This training was held on 14th and 15th Nov, 2014, at YMCA, Mumbai Central. CEHAT is implementing this project for a period of 3 years (2013-2015) along with seven medical colleges in Maharashtra (six state govt. medical colleges viz. Aurangabad, Nagpur, Miraj, Dhule, Kolhapur and Ambejogai, and one private medical college viz. Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, Kamothe). This project is in collaboration with the Directorate of Medical Education and Research, Govt. of Maharashtra, Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Nasik, and United Nations Population Fund. This project aims to sensitize and train medical teachers to incorporate a gender perspective in their teaching and practice with a focus on issues of gender-based violence, abortion and sex selection. The first training was held in February 2014 for five days in Mumbai and saw participation of 27 medical teachers of the seven selected colleges from various departments including Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Forensic Medicine, Preventive and Social Medicine, Psychiatry and General Medicine. However, nearly half of the participants dropped out of the project as they were not permanent faculty members in their colleges, and had to be replaced. This short training was necessitated in order to train the new participants so that they could join the older continuing team for the second five days training in Mumbai, planned for February, 2015. This training had a total of 13 participants from five of the selected colleges. The training was conducted by resource persons including Prof. Vindhya Undhurti (TISS, Hyderabad), Dr. Kamaxi Bhate (KEM, Mumbai), Padma Deosthali (CEHAT), Dr. Suchitra Dalvie (Asia Safe Abortion Partnership) and Dr. Seema Malik (Former Project Director of Dilaasa and Former Chief Medical Superintendent (Peripheral Hospitals), MCGM). For the purpose of this training, the syllabus of the previous training was condensed into eight sessions over two days. The sessions were conducted in an interactive format and there was active participation from the group in all sessions. Methods of teaching included lectures, group activities, case studies and presentations. The training covered the basic ground of concepts such as gender, patriarchy, intersectionalities, and connected its relevance to health through sessions on social determinants of health, gender analysis in health, and an introduction to ethics and rights. The second day’s sessions were on issues of sexuality and sexual and reproductive health and rights, and issues of concern in access to abortion and prevention of sex selection. The session on gender-based violence and response of the health sector introduced participants to recognizing sexual and domestic violence as an underlying cause of health concerns and responding sensitively to survivors of violence in the clinical setting. The final session on mainstreaming gender in undergraduate medical education involved participants to work with colleagues from their own colleges to outline strategies they could follow to implement the project in their colleges, as well as describe barriers they could face and help they would require from CEHAT in implementation. In the session on gender-based violence, Dr. Seema Malik spoke of her experience as a doctor and as an administrator in setting up Dilaasa- a hospital-based crisis centre for responding to domestic and sexual violence at Bhabha Hospital, Bandra. In the final session on mainstreaming gender, Dr. Malik and Dr. S.P. Rao (DMER) commented on and responded to participants’ ideas and inhibitions in implementing the project in their colleges. In conclusion, Dr. Rao spoke strongly of the need for this project in sensitizing medical professionals to issues of gender in health and exhorted all participants to commit themselves to change and take initiative in carrying forward the aims of this project in their colleges. The participants of this training as well as the previous one are to return for the second and last phase of this training of trainers’ programme in Feb, 2015. After this workshop, they are expected to work with project mentors in implementing teaching modules and practices in their colleges and hospitals.

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