AHEC Partnership Enables Collaboration Across Oceans

The South Carolina AHEC has partnered for two years with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and the American University of Beirut (AUB) to provide videoconferencing capabilities for Balint seminars between both universities. The technology allows the seminars to take place despite the faculty and students participating from separate continents. The published results of a study of the effectiveness of the videoconference seminars is now available online at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25320058.

Balint seminars are "used in many family medicine residencies to improve and strengthen the patient-doctor relationship: to make better doctors" (see full paper [insert link]). Unfortunately, there is a lack of credentialed Balint leaders in developing countries; therefore, the feasibility and effectiveness of conducting Balint seminars via videoconference was investigated. Drs. Jumana Antoun and Maya Romani at AUB and Drs. Alan Johnson and Clive Brock at MUSC found that videoconference Balint seminars were indeed a promising alternative to offer the activity to providers in other disciplines, states, and countries while increasing the number of trained Balint leaders.

The South Carolina AHEC is proud to help provide the technical assistance required to make this initiative a success. To read the full paper and find out more, visit http://fampra.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/6/733.long.

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