\u00a0After passing the infrastructural accreditation in 2021, YSMU initiated a program accreditation process. In September 2021, the Scientific Council of the university made a decision to start the process of international accreditation of the educational program “General Medicine”. The decision was based on the fact that if international accreditation is active, our graduates will have the opportunity to continue their education not only in the Republic of Armenia, but also abroad (for example, in the USA), where the international accreditation of the educational program becomes a mandatory condition for continuing education from 2024.<\/p>\n
However, we think that the adaptation of the educational program to international standards is more important, as it will definitely lead to the improvement of the program. In December 2021, preparatory works for accreditation began.<\/p>\n
“We tried to contact experts with experience concerning international accreditation, as it was necessary to detail information about the requirements of all the criteria according to which the self-evaluation report required for the implementation of the program had to be written,” Larisa Avetisyan, Vice-Rector for Educational Affairs of Yerevan State Medical University said. A plan of integrating the accreditation process was drawn and a large self-evaluation group was formed, which actively collaborated with internal beneficiaries and 3 external international experts over the course of 1 year.<\/p>\n
“During the first stage of the process, the working group got acquainted with the requirements of the 5 international standards in meticulous details, according to which the self-evaluation report had to be written. I should mention that those things refer to the goals of the educational program, learning outcomes, their evaluation mechanisms, program structure, content, teaching methods, student achievements, human resources, infrastructural resources, and internal or external quality assessment. Each of the 5 criteria is made up of certain requirement statuses, where it is clearly emphasized which key issues should be addressed when writing the report. To answer questions arising from those requirements, we began to collect information from the last 5 years: the process of collecting the relevant document package started. Each stated sentence had to have the respective document with all the numbers, facts and assurances,” the Vice-Rector emphasized, stating that the self-evaluation report was written as a result of 1.5 years of work.<\/p>\n
The self-evaluation includes both the successes that our university had achieved during the past 5-year, and the challenges, ways and tools for their improvement that exist as of now.<\/p>\n
According to the Vice-Rector, international experts worked with internal and external beneficiaries, the infrastructure and human resources of the university were studied with the sole purpose to ensure the implementation of the educational program.”However, the most important thing was the educational program itself. During 1.5 years of working with our colleagues, we made serious changes in the teaching and evaluation formats of the educational program. If until now we were mainly working in a horizontal format, then from September of this year we are starting to implement the modular format”, Larisa Avetisyan stated, emphasizing those participated in the implementation of the changes: the Head of the educational program, the Heads of Departments, the teaching staff, the Department of Educational Programs and etc.<\/p>\n
The current stage of the accreditation process<\/strong><\/p>\n The final version of the self-evaluation report and all required documents by 2023 were sent to the NCEQE international accreditation body in July.<\/p>\n The visit of the international expert group to Yerevan State Medical University is expected in the period between October 16-21. “Within 3-4 days, the representatives of specialist teams will meet with different groups, it concerns both external and internal beneficiaries, those are the entire management staff of the university, heads of departments, professors, students, graduates, employers. They will verify on the spot the whole process, which we wrote about in the report, and they will also listen to the opinions of internal and external beneficiaries”, Larisa Avetisyan informed, adding that they would also visit one university clinic and one of the 28 clinics which did not belong to the university, but had signed contracts with it. The experts will also be in the chairs, laboratories, Simulation Center and “Mikayelyan” University Hospital, where this year for the first time the practical phase of the final state exam was conducted using the international OSCE format. According to the Vice-Rector’s conviction, international accreditation of any sort is aimed to reform and help making improvements in a short period of time.<\/p>\n “Of course, we ourselves know our strengths and weaknesses, because each criterion of the self-evaluation report ends with a SWOT analysis, but when you work with international experts, who have many years of work experience as serious specialists in the field of medical education, while also being a specialist yourself, the tools which are used and will bring success in a shorter period of time, are more clear to the eye”, the Vice-Rector for Educational Affairs of the medical university summed up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u0535\u0580\u0587\u0561\u0576\u056b \u0544\u056d\u056b\u0569\u0561\u0580 \u0540\u0565\u0580\u0561\u0581\u0578\u0582 \u0561\u0576\u057e\u0561\u0576 \u057a\u0565\u057f\u0561\u056f\u0561\u0576 \u0562\u056a\u0577\u056f\u0561\u056f\u0561\u0576 \u0570\u0561\u0574\u0561\u056c\u057d\u0561\u0580\u0561\u0576\u0568 2021 \u0569\u057e\u0561\u056f\u0561\u0576\u056b\u0576 \u0565\u0576\u0569\u0561\u056f\u0561\u057c\u0578\u0582\u0581\u057e\u0561\u056e\u0584\u0561\u0575\u056b\u0576 \u0570\u0561\u057e\u0561\u057f\u0561\u0580\u0574\u0561\u0563\u0580\u0578\u0582\u0574\u0576 \u0561\u0576\u0581\u0576\u0565\u056c\u0578\u0582\u0581 \u0570\u0565\u057f\u0578 \u0576\u0561\u056d\u0561\u0571\u0565\u057c\u0576\u0565\u0581 \u056e\u0580\u0561\u0563\u0580\u0561\u0575\u056b\u0576 \u0570\u0561\u057e\u0561\u057f\u0561\u0580\u0574\u0561\u0563\u0580\u0574\u0561\u0576 \u0563\u0578\u0580\u056e\u0568\u0576\u0569\u0561\u0581\u0589<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[376,372,1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-143944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-interviews","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n