
We are really excited to announce the recently released edition of Researching Medical Education (2022). This book offers an excellent guide to educational research within the context of the healthcare professions. Prof Jennifer Cleland, an extraordinary professor at the CHPE co-edited the book, while Prof Susan van Schalkwyk (Director at the CHPE) and Dr Rhoda Meyer (Lecturer at the CHPE) co-authored a chapter. This chapter titled 'Developing the research question: setting the course for your research travels', focuses on the core of the research process, which is the research question. A metaphor of triple distillation is used where readers are taken on a journey through the various processes of developing a research question.
RESEARCHING MEDICAL EDUCATION
Researching Medical Education is an authoritative guide to excellence in educational research within the healthcare professions presented by the Association for the Study of Medical Education and AMEE. This text provides readers with key foundational knowledge, while introducing a range of theories and how to use them, illustrating a diversity of methods and their use, and giving guidance on practical researcher development. By linking theory, design, and methods across the spectrum of health professions education research, the text supports the improvement of quality, capacity building, and knowledge generation.
Researching Medical Education Edition 2 is now available via Amazon and Wiley

We would like to congratulate Prof Susan van Schalkwyk on receiving one of the 2022 Chancellor's awards. This prestigious award focuses on sustained excellence in research, innovation, learning and teaching, as well as social impact and/or professional services.
Prof Elize Archer was invited as the guest speaker at the Paray Nursing College annual graduation in the Lesotho highlands. Elize is also the chairperson of their Senate. On the last day the staff at the college presented her with a traditional Lesotho blanket as a token of appreciation. Elize, you make us proud!!
Annual Academic Day 2022
The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences hosted its 66th Annual Academic Day on the afternoons of Wednesday 31 Aufust and Thursday 1 September 2022. All presentations submitted were presented in either oral or poster format in a set of 9 multidisciplinary tracks. For the first time in history, Health Professions Education had its own track with a total of 11 oral presentations. Prof Cecilia Jacobs presented our State-of -the-Art talk titled " Health Professions Education - whence and whither?"
Thank you to all the presenters and participants. It was a day to remember.
Access the programme here
Final Programme - 66th Annual Academic Day - 31 Aug 2022-red.pdf
SAAHE best Publication Award 2022
Congratulations to Prof Susan van Schalkwyk and her author team with this big achievement!! They have been awarded the SAAHE best Publication award for 2022 with their Scoping review on Transformative learning. Susan, we are proud of you.
Van Schalkwyk, S.C., Hafler, J., Brewer, T.F., Maley, M.A., Margolis, C., McNamee, L., Meyer, I., Peluso, M.J., Schmutz, A.M., Spak, J.M. and Davies, D., 2019. Transformative learning as pedagogy for the health professions: a scoping review. Medical education, 53(6), pp.547-558.
PREDAC 2022
Rhoda Meyer recently attended a PREDAC session at the STIAS. The theme for the session was 'thinking out of the box' and participants were encouraged to think differently about Teaching, Learning, and Assessment as well as the way they see themselves. To stimulate this idea of thinking differently, an artist was present at the session to create caricatures of each attendee.
A huge congratulations to our colleague Dr Mariette Volschenk (PhD) who graduated her PhD on 14 December 2021
Mariette's PhD dissertation is entitled 'Identity trajectories of health professions educators involved in Master’s-level Health Professions Education studies'. Below follows a short summary of the study.
Master’s programmes in health professions education aim to meet a global demand for producing educational scholars and leaders. This multiple case study, situated within an interpretivist paradigm explored educational master’s candidates’ learning and identity trajectories. It highlighted several factors that may enable or constrain the development of educational leaders and scholars in the context of these programmes. Factors include transitional challenges inherent to master’s studies in education, the negotiation of an educator identity across the boundaries of epistemologically and ontologically diverse communities of practice, and the influence of organisational culture on the sustainability of the educational scholar and leader identity.
Photo: Left: Prof Susan v Scalkwyk / Right: Dr M Volschenk
Congratulations Mariette Volschenk!
Please join us in congratulating Mariette Volschenk who has been announced the winner of the best Research presentation at the SoTL conference. Mariette presented on her recently completed doctoral research. A really great presentation that you can access
here.
We are very proud, Mariette. Well done!
Congratulations Dr Rhoda Meyer!!
As part of her PhD, Rhoda Meyer conducted a study on 'The private healthcare context as an environment for learning. Using a qualitative, interpretivist paradigm, the study set out to explore how a specific private healthcare environment influences the learning experiences of nursing students. This study makes a contribution to nurse education by demonstrating the complexity of the learning environment.