ANATOMY 1 Name of the Department: Department ... - Biomeedikum

PUBLIC HEALTH
students started in September 2000. This is the first time public health specialists
will be trained in Estonia since 1940.
5. Name the factors which most disturb teaching (excluding financial resources).
• Many of the staff lack personal professional experience, which can make
their message to the students sometimes too theoretical.
• The structure and role of public health services has not been solved in Estonia,
along with problems in manpower planning of public health specialists.
• Much of energy and time of the staff is spent on various consulatncies and
developmental activities on national (governmental) level. This provides
contacts, experience and thus opportunities for further development, but
competes with the main objective – teaching.
• The disciplines of public health are traditionally not perceived to be of relevance
in order to become a physician and thus the enthusiasm of students
is generally low.
II. EVALUATION OF TEACHING
6. How is the quality of the teaching in your department evaluated? How are
the content and the modes of the teaching changed on the basis of the
evaluation?
During last years, after completion of a course it has been usually evaluated
by the students on the basis of questionnaires, developed by the different
chairs of the Department. This has provided some feedback for the tutors on
how to improve the content and presentation of the course. The heads of
chairs routinely visit the seminars and lectures given by junior staff and guest
lecturers in order to upgrade the content and mode of teaching of different tutors.
In May 1999, a Peer-Review team from ASPHER (Association of Schools of
Public Health in European Region) of 3 University Professors of Public Health
visited the Department for three days and draw up a comprehensive report,
which is presented in full on the Web-page of the Department
(http://www.dph.ut.ee). In addition to their overall positive conclusions, the
team provided a number of realistic and critical suggestions for improvement
of teaching and further development of the Department, many of which have
been followed.
III. PEDAGOGIC TRAINING OF STAFF
7. How many of the teachers have received pedagogic training?
Approximately half of staff has attended formal courses of pedagogic training
of 2-4 weeks of duration. This implies to the junior staff, who attended these
courses during their Master of Public Health studies abroad. The older staff
has not gained formal pedagogic training.
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