PESHAWAR, June 11: Teachers of medical colleges should share latest research and technical advancement with their students in order to bring about improvement in the medical profession.

"The new concept of sharing information among teachers and students has brought some very useful changes in medical profession. This could also provide a chance to teachers and students to conduct their own research," said Prof Dr Rashida Ahmad, head of Medical Education Department of the Aga Khan Medical University, Karachi, while speaking at a workshop on 'New Trends in Medical Education' held at Khyber Medical College (KMC) here on Friday.

She said the era of communication gap had gone after the introduction of information technology. Earlier, teachers were supposed to tell everything to students directly, but now with the help of Internet and other means, students too could explore various things which they could later share with their teachers, she added.

She said the concept of information sharing between teachers and students was common at the Aga Khan University which had yielded positive results particularly in research work.

Dr Rashida Ahmad said that this concept was also very common in Western countries and had also been applied in India. She was of the opinion that a module-based curriculum should be introduced in all educational institutions.

This system provided a chance to students to gain more information based on latest research, she said and added that it was also helpful in underlining the errors being committed during the research work.

Dr Rashida was of the view that the information sharing system also helped academicians in choosing right topics and moving towards introducing an integrated system of education. She underlined some essential measures for the up-gradation of medical education.

While highlighting the importance of transparency in medical education, she said that the concept of brief answers should be made more common, which would be helpful in judging the capacity of students.

Dr Rashida also talked about the role of internal assessment in medical education and believed that this could be easily materialized in the new system. Speaking on the occasion, KMC Principal Prof Dr Khalid Attaullah Mufti said that in developed countries, new trends had been introduced in medical teaching.

He also lauded the efforts of former principal Dr Sirajuddin Ahmad who introduced new trends in medical education. Dr Mufti claimed that the KMC would soon be made a university where students would be introduced about emerging trends in medical sciences.