Guest Post: Pre-Conference Workshops—A Chance to Teach and Learn (Part 2 of 2)

[This post is by Dr. Farooq Rathore, assistant professor, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, CMH Lahore Medical College and Institute of Dentistry, Lahore, Pakistan. Thanks very much! —Barbara]

In last week’s blog post, I discussed 2 pre-conference workshops that I recently led. In this week’s post, I will say a little about the third pre-conference workshop and make some closing comments.

The third workshop preceded the 2nd international and 4th national conference of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Armed Forces Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine (AFIRM), Rawalpindi, Pakistan. This workshop was special because it was at the place where I stated my career in medical research and writing and completed my residency training program a few years back.

This workshop was attended by 30 participants, including medical students from the army medical college, residents from AFIRM, faculty members, health care administrators, and allied health care professionals (such as nurses and physical therapists). The workshop was conducted in 2 parts of 3 hours each. This schedule gave us adequate time to deliver the content at an appropriate pace, answer all queries from the participants, and complete the 7 hands-on exercises.

All 3 workshops were accredited for CME credit points by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council. Dr. Nasir Mansoor was my co-facilitator in these workshops.

So far I have facilitated 20 workshops on medical writing at 8 institutes or hospitals. In total, more than 350 participants have attended. These workshops are a source of inspiration and learning for me too, as giving the workshops helps me learn new perspectives each time, which I try to integrate into my future workshops. I thank AuthorAID and INASP for their continuing support.