Project: Development of Core Curriculum in Occupational Health (2005-2008)

Across the EU fundamental principles of harmonization and free movement of labor and capital have led to a common basis for health and safety legislation and also the training and mutual recognition of medical specialists and other experts in the field of occupational health. The evolving definition of occupational health includes not only the medical practitioners and occupational specialists, but also a complex group of other stakeholders, such as the employers, workers, inspection services, etc., which imposes establishment of different education and training levels and development of appropriate modern and up-to-date didactic methods. The overall goal of the project is contribution towards harmonization of occupational medicine curriculum in Eastern European countries and improvement of the occupational health knowledge transfer to other stakeholders in work and health..

Article Contents:

• The Project
• The Idea
• General Guidelines
• Detailed Guidelines
• Downloads
• Materials of the National workshop in Macedonia
• Partners
• Financial Support
• Photo gallery

The Project

The project “Development of core curriculum in Occupational Health” is implemented as an Institutional Partnership between academic and scientific institutions from Switzerland, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro and Croatia. The overall goal of the Project is harmonization of occupational medicine curriculum in Eastern European countries and improvement of the occupational health knowledge transfer to other stakeholders in work and health..

The main objective is to identify the common core competencies required for occupational specialists (physicians, hygienists, inspectors) in Eastern Europe, and to develop a core curriculum for education and training in occupational health..

The Idea

Aiming at assisting the different categories of stakeholders in the area of occupational health, the Project is also dedicated to creating a pool of case studies in occupational medicine with the focus on physical, chemical, biological and ergonomic exposure and emphasis on the occupational medicine approach for individuals (individual cases) as well as on workplaces (exposed collective)..

Such database will contribute towards the improvement of the access of medical students and other stakeholders (such as occupational health professionals, inspection services, governmental officials and non-governmental activists) to materials necessary for obtaining high-quality and effective training in occupational health, as well as it will serve as a resource for continuing education and updates in this area. It will also help for the development the problem oriented learning process as a creative learning method at the university level in the Eastern European countries in accordance with the EU regulation..

The Project invites all health professionals, occupational health experts, medical students as well as other stakeholders to contribute towards building a high quality database of case studies..

The reviewed case studies will be published in a structured searchable database, maintained on the Internet. This database will be made freely accessible to everyone interested in this field..

Selected case studies will be used as a teaching and reference material at the Regional Summer School in Occupational Health..

General Guidelines

The case studies should be between 1,000 – 1,500 words long, describing a positive or negative influence/impact of a certain project, policy decision or an implemented practice/mechanism. The case study should have distinctive elements….

The authors wishing to remain anonymous should clearly state this in the document..

For the purpose of processing, we encourage the authors to send the case studies in the Word, Rich text or PDF format..

There is no particular submission deadline for this Call for Case Studies. However, due to possibility for their use as a material for the Regional Summer School in Occupational Health, we encourage their submission by April 2007..

Detailed Guidelines

For the first-time writers of a case study, the Team has prepared a more detailed guide with the essentials that have to be covered by the case. For further details please contact us at the e-mail below.

1. Title – What? (no more than 3 lines): Describing the focus of the case study
2. Aims/Objectives – Why, Where? (approx 200 words):
   • Why is this case study important? Give some background on reasons.
   • Where it is located and whether it is rural or urban, in the production or non-production sector.
   • What group is in the focus (occupational health professionals, employees, employers, inspection services, general community, etc).
3. The Case – How, Who, When? (approx 450 words):
   • Stakeholders – who were the main stakeholders? Did they experience benefits/losses from the undertaken action (project, policy decision, etc.)
   • Community participation – how were the community and stakeholders involved?
   • Implementation
     • What changes/benefits happened for the target group from the project? (short-term and long-term)
     • Did the project/policy achieve its aims/objectives?
     • Were there any unexpected outcomes? What are they?
4. Sustainability (approx. 150 words):
   • How will the project/policy and its benefits continue into the future?
   • Can the project be replicated with other groups and in other areas?
5. Lessons Learnt (approx. 300 words):
   • What can be learnt from this case study?
   • What were the main challenges? Did the instruments/mechanisms involved met these challenges or difficulties?
   • Did anything unexpected happen? How did you handle this?
   • What would you do the same/differently if you implement such a project again?
   • Any advice for others implementing a similar project?
6. Contacts/Links/Resources:

Please list any contacts, links or resources that you found particularly useful and which could be helpful to others.

Contact: For further information or to submit the case study, please contact us at casestudy@studiorum.org.mk.

Downloads:

• Situation Analysis (Initial) [PDF – 48 kB]
• Case Study Guidelines [PDF – 62 kB]

Materials of the National workshop in Macedonia:

• Preventive medical examinations [PDF – 2,52 MB] (Only Macedonian version)
• Risk [PDF – 1,87 MB] (Only Macedonian version)

Partners:

• Institut universitaire romand de Sant� au Travail (IURST) University of Lausanne, Switzerland
• Institute of Hygiene and Applied Physiology (ETHZ), Switzerland
• Department of Occupational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Skopje, Macedonia
• CRPRC �Studiorum� – Skopje, Macedonia
• Occupational Health Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
• Department for Environmental and Occupational Health, Andrija Stampar School of Public Health, University of Zagreb, Croatia

This Project is financially supported by: