Balancing the educational choices in the decision-making of a dean of medicine : fission or fusion?

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dc.contributor.author Wolvaardt, Jacqueline Elizabeth (Liz)
dc.contributor.author Lindeque, B. Gerhard
dc.contributor.author Du Toit, Pieter Hertzog
dc.date.accessioned 2016-06-14T05:49:12Z
dc.date.available 2016-06-14T05:49:12Z
dc.date.issued 2016-05
dc.description.abstract BACKGROUND. The literature on deans of medicine focuses mostly on the qualifications, roles, abilities, management and leadership competence of the deans. The gap between theory and practice is, however, the nucleus of the position. OBJECTIVES. To describe insights into the educational forces that act on a dean of medicine and the implications for those who wish to bring about change – in this case, changes in the inclusion of public health in the medical curriculum. METHODS. A series of in-depth interviews of a vice dean (VD) of medicine was conducted over a period of a year. The interviews were transcribed. Initial in-depth analysis of the transcriptions was done using open coding, prior to a second round of coding that resulted in themes. RESULTS. The interviews revealed a serendipitous aspect, namely the ontological realities of the VD’s practice. This practice is characterised by balancing multiple internal and external forces, such as the breadth and depth of the curriculum that acts on the medical curriculum. CONCLUSION. The ontological realities of the VD bring to life the qualifications and leadership, and management competence, roles and abilities described in the literature. The multiple – often opposing – educational choices that deans face are an inescapable reality of deanship. Medical deans must balance these opposing forces to ensure fusion within the curriculum, and those interested in changes, such as strengthening the teaching of public health in this curriculum, need to plan on how to overcome this. en_ZA
dc.description.department Humanities Education en_ZA
dc.description.department School of Health Systems and Public Health (SHSPH) en_ZA
dc.description.librarian am2016 en_ZA
dc.description.uri http://www.ajhpe.org.za en_ZA
dc.identifier.citation Wolvaardt, JE, Lindeque, BG & Du Toit, PH 2016, 'Balancing the educational choices in the decision-making of a dean of medicine : fission or fusion?', African Journal of Health Professions Education, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 25-29. en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn 2078-5127
dc.identifier.other 10.7196/AJHPE.2016.v8i1.474
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/53092
dc.language.iso en en_ZA
dc.publisher Health and Medical Publishing Group en_ZA
dc.rights © 2016 Health and Medical Publishing Group. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license. en_ZA
dc.subject Medical curriculum en_ZA
dc.subject Public health en_ZA
dc.subject Literature en_ZA
dc.subject Vice dean (VD) en_ZA
dc.title Balancing the educational choices in the decision-making of a dean of medicine : fission or fusion? en_ZA
dc.type Article en_ZA


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