Twelve members of the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Health Sciences  attended the 22nd annual conference of the Southern African Association for Health Educationalists (SAAHE) held in Umhlanga, Durban, from 25 to 28 June 2024. The conference, themed “Decoding and Recoding to Transform for Contextually Relevant Health Professions Education”, offered a wealth of research and experience for those engaged with the practice and scholarship of health professions education. 

The conference featured a lineup of prominent speakers including Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, Rector of the United Nations University; Professor Thirusha Naidu, Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and Public Health at UKZN; Professor Champion Nyoni from the School of Nursing at the University of the Free State; Professor Subha Ramani, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School; and Professor Olle ten Cate, a professor of medical education at University Medical Center. These experts captivated the audience with discussions on topics such as artificial intelligence in health professions education, algorithms of oppression, embracing context in practice, learning feedback, and competency-based education. Furthermore, a first for SAAHE, an interactive student-directed debate by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Debating Union on artificial intelligence in health professions education was also conducted, where the opposition team was able to sway the audience towards their opinion of concerns of using it currently within educational platforms.

Faculty members in attendance were from several departments and schools within the faculty, highlighting the importance of seeing the diversity of health professions education with unique contextual challenges and solutions. Members included Drs Marlize Cochrane-Boeyens (Health Professions Education Office), Owen Eales (Family Medicine), Yvette Hlophe (Physiology), Mable Kekana (Radiography), and Nontembiso Magida (Physiotherapy), and Profs Sumaiya Adam (Obstetrics and Gynaecology), Werner Cordier (Pharmacology), Vidya Lalloo (Emergency Medicine), Dianne Manning (Dean’s Office), Joyce Mothabeng (Physiotherapy), Professor Mavis Mulaudzi (Nursing Science) and Vanessa Steenkamp (Dean’s Office). Members presented on a variety of topics important to the health professions education context, including the use of artificial intelligence in assessment, contextually relevant curriculum redesign, continuing professional development and future competency needs, visual representations of the emergency medicine core competencies, interprofessional education, student success, and work-based assessment. The excellence of our faculty was showcased, with new collaborations forged, ideas soundboarded and skill sets developed. We trust that members of our faculty will continue to feature prominently in future conferences and lead the way for the improvement of health professions education at the University of Pretoria.

The full programme and abstract book can be found in the provided links.