About 20-25% of all physician consultations refer to problems of the skin. Thus Dermato-Venereology is a very important core component in the undergraduate training of medical students. However, less than 3% of doctors in Europe are specialized in Dermato-Venereology. The better the medical undergraduate training at the university level, the better the diagnostic and therapeutic decisions and the interdisciplinary consultation at the time when the student has reached the level of a licensed doctor in daily practice at the private office or in the clinic. Currently an unwanted disproportion of contents and of teaching hours at the level of universities across Europe exists. The differences in lecture hours vary between 40 and 130 from country to country. There is a need to harmonize the contents (catalogue and special contents), the amount of teaching time and ways of lecturing (frames) and combining it with advanced didactic e-learning facilities. In this project European partners will work on harmonization of the catalogue of learning objectives, formats and contents in the undergraduate training curriculum in Dermato-Venereology. In parallel the harmonization of the written new curriculum will be connected and supported by working out a blended e-learning program. In the traditional setting at our universities lectures are presented in overcrowded lecture halls in front of a heterogeneous group of students, regardless of their different level of knowledge, language skills, or of their individual intellectual learning capacities. Little feedback is given neither to the teachers nor to the students. In order to cope with these problems, the curriculum for medical undergraduate training in Dermato-Venereology should be renewed, revised and restructured. This is the first relevant part of the HEDU_LEARN_IT project. „Blended learning“is the combination of classical teaching and learning tools (front lectures, practical courses, bedside teaching) with modern e-learning tools for self-directed learning, independent from time and space. In the „flipped or inverted classroom“the teacher acts as moderator and mentor, receiving feedbacks and guiding the individual student according to his/her individual requirements. We owe this possibility to the capacity and flexibility of computer technology. Dermato-Venereology is a visual discipline and therefore especially suitable for the use of computer-based technologies which -depending on mutual consent- can reflect the knowledge profile of the individual user (student). Objectives of the project The aims of the Harmonized European Dermatology Undergraduate Training by Strategic Partnership (HEDU_LEARN_IT)-Program are: (1) elaboration of standards for an harmonized undergraduate Dermato-Venereology-training in 8 European partner-universities; allocation of credit points (ECTS) (2) promoting an innovative blended learning concept by combining classical teaching strategies with interactive e-learning tools (DOIT; www.cyberderm.net) in an inverted (flipped) classroom setting; (3) disseminating of the project and promoting harmonisation of undergraduate training in Dermato-Venereology in Europe after finishing the funded-project-phase under the immaterial support of the European Dermatology Forum (EDF) and its Undergraduate Training Commission (UTC); (4) sustaining the concept beyond the sponsored time frame Number and profile of participants The eight university partners are representatives of Dermato-Venereology from northern, eastern, southern and central European countries. They have longstanding experience in teaching and are highly motivated in promoting and running the project for improving undergraduate training at their universities and later to help to disseminate and to implement it to other countries in Europe. Not only the immediate project partners but also all members of the European Dermatology Forum (200 teaching professors from 28 European countries) have committed their sincere interest in the project. One partner has a more than 15 years experience in e-learning and running different platforms for e-learning (Swiss 4 Ward). In short, the results of the project are as follows: • a new basic and harmonized European Catalogue of Learning Objectives EHC-DV, • a complete rewritten content of diagnoses, • restructured curriculum for undergraduate training in Dermatology and Venereology in combining it according to a blended learning concept in an inverted (flipped) classroom, • recalculated amount of lectures, seminars, bedside teaching, workshops and recommendation of the new format, • implementation of the new curriculum at the 8 partner universities • dissemination and exploitation of the new curriculum to EU countries and universities beyond the 8 primary partner universities
For higher education in Europe and with special emphasis in medical postgraduate and in undergraduate training at the university level a high need exists for harmonization of training curricula. Mobility of students and of residents resp. specialists needs clear systematic prerequisites to guarantee credit point transfer equilibrity and acceptance of examens for having the chance of being employed without any additional tests and examens. Despite the subsidiarity system in the european health regulations postgraduate training harmonization is already far advanced and in more tha 25 medical displines European Training Recommendation exist. Back in 1994, the UEMS adopted its "Charter on Training of Medical Specialists" with an aim to outline the guiding principles for high level Medical Training in chapter 6. ( see ETR`s www.uems.net ). The one for Dermato-Venereology was approved by the 28 national physician chambers and the medical societies in 2017 and published ( Gollnick et al 2019, JEADV, 33:3-25) . However, in contrast to the situation in postgraduate training a harmonization of medical undergraduate training in medicine does not exist in the manner as for postgraduate training. Whereas for postgraduate training on the national level harmonization exists, in undergraduate training in some countries a national catalogue is provided and can be on the university level adapted or there is just a framework of hours given and medical faculties decide about the amount of teaching hours. Therefore, we took the iniative to establish a European harmonized medical undergraduate training catalogue and content recommendation for the medical discipline dermato-venereology (EHC_DV).Furthermore, there should not be a conflict of general curricular contents between postgraduate and undergraduate training existing. About 20-25% of all physician consultations refer to problems of the skin and STI`s. Thus Dermato-Venereology is a very important core component in the undergraduate training of medical students. However, less than 3% of doctors in Europe are specialized in Dermato-Venereology after graduating. The better the medical undergraduate training at the university level, the better the diagnostic and therapeutic decisions and the interdisciplinary consultation at the time when the student has reached the level of a licensed doctor in daily practice at the private office or in the hospital setting. Before starting the project and until today an unwanted disproportion of contents and of teaching hours for dermato-venereology at the level of universities across Europe exists. The differences in lecture hours vary between 40 and 130 from country to country as has been evaluated by the associate partner in the project European Dermatology Forum, the assembly of teaching professors from nearly all European universities. Therefore, we saw the urgent need to harmonize the contents (catalogue and special contents), the amount of teaching time and ways of lecturing (frames) and combining it with advanced didactic e-learning facilities. In the traditional setting at our Universities lectures are presented in overcrowded lecture halls in front of a heterogeneous group of students, regardless of their different level of knowledge, language skills, or of their individual intellectual learning capacities. Little feedback is given neither to the teachers nor to the students. In order to cope with these problems, the curriculum for medical undergraduate training in Dermato-Venereology has been renewed, revised and restructured. Existing national catalogues from the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland have been evaluated and taken as a basis of diagnoses and other teaching topics as well as the cyberderm platform catalogue of diagnoses ( www.cyberderm.net) or the spectrum of diagnoses given in the New Zealand one (www.dermnetnz.org) . The first relevant part of the HEDU_LEARN_IT project results contains now a PDF webbok with long version texts in 9 chapters of 506 pages and in a mediwikistyle written short versions installed to the cyberderm platform. The second part of results regards the „Blended learning“ . This is the combination of classical teaching and learning tools (front lectures, practical courses, bedside teaching) with modern e-learning tools for self-directed learning, independent from time and space. This was achieved as the second relevant part of the project in which 249 students were involved by follow-up questionnaires for evaluating the materials worked out. Number and profile of participants The eight university partners are representatives of Dermato-Venereology from northern, eastern, southern and central European countries including a specialist in running e-learning platforms. They all had longstanding experience in teaching and were highly motivated in promoting and running the project for improving undergraduate training at their universities and later to help to disseminate and to implement it to other countries in Europe together with the European Dermatology Forum (200 teaching professors from 28 European countries) as longterm benefit.