Medical Peace Work 3 – Strengthening Health Workers’ Performance in Violence Prevention and Peace Building Erasmus Project

Project Title

Medical Peace Work 3 – Strengthening Health Workers’ Performance in Violence Prevention and Peace Building

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships addressing more than one field

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Open and distance learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Health and wellbeing

Project Summary

Health work and peace work can be seen as two aspects of the same objective: Contributing to the wellbeing and prosperity of fellow citizens. Health professionals and their organisations often find themselves in a unique position to prevent or reduce violence and to promote peace. Since 2004, the European Medical Peace Work Partnership has developed training material on peace issues for health professionals.

In 2011, seven Medical Peace Work (MPW) online courses were launched as a self-study option for health professionals. The courses, as well as a web-based resource centre for medical teachers and trainers, are available free of charge at www.medicalpeacework.org. By then, nearly 7.000 users had created an account at the online learning platform, and more than 730 certificates had been issued. The courses were accredited by the Norwegian Medical Association as standalone CME-credited courses (continuous medical education). They had also been applied in medical and health science education at various teaching institutions across Europe.
Feedback, however, revealed that self-running online courses require a high level of self-discipline on the part of the students. Albeit a variety of online discussion solutions, individual online students had also reported a lack of peer contact, which they saw as important to their ability to complete the course and to their practical skills training.

With MPW3, we wished to introduce Case-based learning (CBL) as a new teaching methodology. Our consortium of project partners planned to produce twelve new cases that will complement the existing MPW online courses. The new material would focus on skills training in teamwork and problem solving, to be used in face-to-face settings or in blended learning solutions when combined with the online courses. We also wanted it to be used outside educational institutions and even independently from skilled facilitators; our planned audio-visual case material and new team-focused online course would contain video guidance.

The primary target group for MPW3 encompassed institutions of higher education and VET for health workers that provide teaching in MPW-related fields of study. Such fields include international health/global health, public health/social medicine, domestic violence prevention, crises prevention/intervention, trauma care, medical ethics & human rights, international humanitarian law, health diplomacy, communication, and conflict management. MPW3’s secondary target group comprised individual health workers and teams of health workers interested in improving their performance in peace building and violence prevention.

Our ten partners constituted a combination of the expertise deemed necessary for this project. Organisations such as University of Bergen, IPPNW and Klinikum Nurnberg have extensive Medical Peace practice and education, and they have all formed part of the MPW consortium since 2004. We also brought in a special organisation with particular expertise in creating and managing case-based learning material – the UK-based Case Centre. Also contributing to this project are new training institutions and organisations with the type of field and situation practice that would feed into the case development and ensure realistic, high quality scenarios.

Multiplier events during the project period included co-organisation of the congress ‘Medicine and Conscience’, where there would be a special thematic focus on challenging peace-health situations in Europe. A workshop to train health educators in CBL methodology and gain their feedback on our material would be organised further into the project period. Finally, a symposium gathering peace-health educators from Europe and around the world would be held towards the final stages of the MPW3 project period. Dissemination would additionally be ensured through various channels that included our extensive peer networks, lobbying activities, the publication of texts and articles in relevant media, public relations events, MPW information material distributed at conferences, meetings and institutions, as well as accreditation and assimilation of the new CBL material into more health education institutions across Europe.

The fact that MPW3 focuses on case-based learning solutions is a symptom of the MPW network’s eagerness to design sustainable training solutions. CBL comes up as a learning method that caters for the learning capacities and needs of the next generation of students. With MPW3, we have been able to bridge the material already produced in MPW 1 and 2 with a methodological approach designed for the future.

MPW as a field of expertise has gradually developed over the past twelve years. Our network of partners and supporters continues to grow, as does the demand for designated and freely accessible teaching material. As long as there are health workers interested in using their special role to build peace and prevent violence, MPW is needed.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 288502,92 Eur

Project Coordinator

Norske leger mot atomvapen & Country: NO

Project Partners

• IPPNW e.V.
• UNIVERSITETET I BERGEN
• The Case Centre
• KLINIKUM NURNBERG
• Stichting Coalition for Work with Psychotrauma and Peace
• Missionsärztliches Institut Würzburg
• Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund Österreichs Landesverband Steiermark