Participants during an Interprofessional Education Students’ Association debate.
Qatar University’s (QU) Health Interprofessional Education Committee in collaboration with the Interprofessional Education Students’ Association (IPE) in Qatar organised its third virtual debate with the motion: “This house believes that telehealth can provide patients with more cost-effective and better-quality care than the current practice.” The event lasted for two hours and was conducted through Qatar University (QU) WebEx application.
It was attended by healthcare students from QU College of Health Sciences (CHS), College of Medicine (CMED), and College of Pharmacy (CPH), along with their colleagues from University of Calgary in Qatar (UCQ), College of North Atlantic in Qatar and Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar (WCMQ).
The event was attended by around 200 local and international participants. Jawaher Baraka, President of the IPE student association from QU-CMED gave the opening remarks, which included an overview of the association’s vision, mission, events, and an introduction of the new IPE executives for year 2020-2021 from the president down to the college representatives.
Then, Dr. Egon Steen Toft, VicePresident for Medical and Health Sciences at Qatar University, welcomed attendees and congratulated the organisers for organising another debate on an important topic and eager to hear both sides of the debate.
This was followed by welcoming remarks from the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at CPH and QU Health Chair of the Interprofessional Education programme, Dr. Alla El Awaisi.
Dr. El Awaisi said how impressed she is with how well the students have worked together in their teams virtually even though they have not met each others before. “These debates emphasizes the importance of building an interprofessional culture during the student undergraduate learning journey. Integrating IPE within healthcare student experiences is key in QU Health vision,” she said.
The judges for the third debate contest were Dr. Faleh Tamimi, Acting Dean of QU College of Dental Medicine at Qatar University; Dr. Derek Stewart, QU Health Manager in Academic Quality; and Dr. Mohamed B. Elshazly, WCM-Q Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Medical Education Division.
Both teams comprised an interprofessional team. The debate contest opened an opportunity to see the perspectives of various healthcare students and allowed the participants to increase their knowledge on the different issues concerning the novel coronavirus, which is currently affecting the lives of everyone around the globe, through reliable data and researches.
The debate was moderated by the previous president of the IPE Students’ Association and Pharmacy MSc graduate Sawsan Al Mukdad. The participants from the affirmative side included: CHS student Alya Naqadan, CPH student Sara Hussein and CMED student Saoud Bossa.
The negative side team included UCQ student Alia Muzafar, CMED student Mohamed Saeed and CPH student Marwa Hamed. The debate followed a format where each student was given a five-minute slot for a speech, a two-minute caucus and a chance for a cross examination from the opposing team.
The audience were allowed to ask questions directed to the teams after the debate and the judges also gave their clarifications and feedback for both teams.
There were intense moments between both sides during the debate as the topic does not only concern health only, but it has an economic, racial and a political aspects also. However, after receiving the votes from both the audience (50 percent) and the judges (50 percent), the negative team was announced as the winning team.
