On the mode of cultivating postgraduates majoring in ophthalmology in the new period



Iatrology is a subject with both high theoretical and practical performances. In recent years, with the development of economy and society, people’s reliance on vision increases day by day. Meanwhile, the modern ophthalmology which takes vision and health as its duty is attracting more and more attention. Postgraduate education, as the highest level of cultivating professionals, is playing an increasingly prominent role in the senior professional cultivation.

Postgraduate education of ophthalmology, on the one hand, requires students to totally master the clinical theoretical system of ophthalmology and possess the ability of clinical operation. On the other hand, it also requires students to be equipped with professional knowledge and ability of clinical practice. As a result, this not only requires students to possess higher quality and ability but also put forward higher requirements for postgraduate education management. How to further deepen reforms to perfect knowledge-training system and to carry out overall quality-oriented education which aims at realizing the organic combination between ophthalmology and clinical medicine is crucial to the quality of postgraduate education of ophthalmology.

Our department has cultivated a large number of postgraduates majoring in ophthalmology so far. It has kept improving teaching management system and achieved fruitful results over the past years. Now, the author will make a discussion about how to enhance their quality and ability on the basis of conditions in our department.

1. Paying attention to the cultivation of professional quality.

Medical ethics is the code of virtuous behavior by which doctors should abide for a whole life. Qualified doctors would treat patients with efficient medical measures on the premise of considering costs and benefits. They would decide the best treatment plan for every patient on the basis of the best current evidence. Respecting patients’ values and wishes, putting patients at first and doing everything for them are vivid reflections of virtuous medical ethics and the idea of promoting medical ethics.

Clinical practice is not only the first step for medical students to enter the society, the beginning of identity-shift from students to doctors, but also the best period for training good professional qualities. Our department has set up new ideas and turned exam-oriented education into quality-oriented one. We pay more attention to the spirit cultivation of creation, corporation, professional dedication and science, and to raising the awareness of law, competition, efficiency, service and creation. In the new teaching mode, teachers guide students to finish all the courses of ophthalmology in clinical practice and help them foster a virtue of serving patients all the time. Moreover, there is a pre-job training for postgraduates before their clinical practice in our department, which requires them to establish the idea of serving the people whole-heartedly, to keep a civilized attitude when saving lives, to take care of patients and dedicate themselves to in-depth study of professional knowledge and to know the importance of medical ethics. All those are not only prerequisite and guarantee for finishing major courses during internship, but also necessary qualities for qualified doctors. As for the clinical teachers, they are not only teachers but also friends, responsible for students’ both clinical knowledge and thoughts. They use their personal experiences as well as standard behaviors to make students strengthen self-education and self-management. In addition, evaluation and assessment will be made on students’ ideology and morality, working discipline and attitudes toward patients in order to make students bear the scared medical vow, «health related, and life entrusted» in mind forever.

2. Laying emphasis on the training of medical practice ability.

Clinical medicine is a science combining theory closely with practice. To be a qualified doctor, one should not only know plenty of knowledge about ophthalmology, but also excellent professional skills. Internship is not just to repeat the same things in books but to put theories into practice. Encouraging students to take part in and improving teaching quality have already become the core part in clinical teaching. During the stage of clinical practice, we lay an emphasis on the training of students’ basic skills and guide them to learn how to think independently and improve their problem-solving ability. Students finish the theoretical study of ophthalmology in clinical work. Through collecting the information, which reflects patients’ real conditions, and on the basis of detailed and comprehensive observation as well as accurate judgment, then they can make the scientific diagnosis and reasonable treatment for patients. Students are trained to get first-hand information through asking medical history, physical examination, regular laboratory examination and imageological diagnosis. One of the efficient teaching methods that we have summarized through years of teaching practice is to let postgraduates take part in clinical diagnosis and treatment as well as ward management. This method has become a routine in our department. Teaching secretary makes arrangement on the basis of the condition of internship tutors and sickbeds for teaching use to ensure that teachers and students share responsibility for the patients during patients’ hospital stay. In order to guarantee the quality of teaching and medical treatment, teachers will give concrete guidance to what students have done such as physical examinations, therapy plan and case writing. In addition, they prefer to encourage students to think and deal with practical problems independently.

1. Adopting Flexible Training Modes for Clinical Practice.

The rapid development of modern society has injected more new concepts and contents into the education of medical students. Clinical quality and ability are not simply equal to training of clinical practice skills. Besides, clinical thinking ability, analysis and synthesis, diagnosis and treatment, clinical research quality as well as innovation ability, etc. are all important components of clinical quality and ability. Many ophthalmology postgraduates are over-anxious for quick results in the clinical practice. They pay too much attention to clinical practice, especially operation opportunity, neglecting the mastery of the whole system, such as professional knowledge, basic operation skills, diagnosis and treatment of eye disease, etc. As a result, they just know ophthalmology superficially, but have no in-depth understanding about it, not to mention clinical analysis and synthesis, innovation thinking as well as scientific research ability.

On the basis of this condition, our department has further deepened reform, adopting various modes of clinical education. For example, the doctors and postgraduates in our department would participate in teaching ward round every Friday under the guidance of head of department and make case reports to and ophthalmologic test for the inpatients. According to specific case, the teacher would put forward questions from the shallower to deeper and then let the postgraduates answer after enlightening them, guiding students to carry out discussions on different ideas. Every Thursday afternoon, teachers with rich clinical experience would give special lectures so that students could know the frontier knowledge and development trend of this field. The «clinical case discussion», «pre-operation and post-operation case discussion», «experience exchange of clinical practice», etc. organized by the students could fully inspire students’ consciousness, initiative and creativity and dedicate themselves into clinical practice actively, thus improving their ability of discovering and solving problems continuously. What’s more, students could memorize the discussed knowledge well, which would be conducive to improving their ability of synthesis, analysis and judgment. Through this kind of gradually in-depth learning, students have learned how to acquire knowledge on their own and transferred theory into ability, thus improving their qualities comprehensively.

2. Cultivating Students’ Innovation Spirit.

Currently, there still exist many mysteries to explore in the medical field, which require everyone to bring subjective initiative and creative potential into full play so as to create future proactively. Moreover, the ophthalmologists are required to possess innovation spirit to open up the future and create broader development space for them. The clinical teachers in our department always help students to accumulate experience unremittingly during guiding their clinical practice, and discover innovative points as the entry points of research topic. Besides, in the process of clinical practice, students are required to design the clinical research topic, write summary and collect relevant materials, which can not only give full play to students’ enthusiasm as well as initiative in the clinical practice and strengthen their sense of responsibility, but also increase their ability of discovering and solving problems, thus cultivating their innovative thinking.

3. Building a High-Level Team of Clinical Practice Teachers.

The quality of clinical teachers plays a key, even crucial role in improving students’ clinical quality and practical ability to some extent. Therefore, the clinical teachers are required to possess good medical morals, higher ability of clinical practice, and excellent scientific research quality. In the meanwhile, postgraduates, who are different from graduates to a large extent, are more anxious for knowledge and have a higher knowledge level as they possess some professional knowledge and skills. Furthermore, they have rationality when viewing things. Consequently, it draws a higher and stricter demand for the comprehensive quality, innovative ability, etc. of clinical teachers. According to this situation, our department would organize regular training and performance evaluation for clinical teachers to continuously improve their medical morals and ability of clinical practice. In addition, we have set rotation system of clinical teachers so that every postgraduate can learn from different teachers, getting an equal studying chance.

3. Perfecting evaluation system of clinical ability training.

Scientific management and a sound, well-established degree appraisal system play an important role in the all-round development of talents’ comprehensive quality and ability. In order to cultivate senior ophthalmology specialist who have a solid foundation of basic knowledge and high ability of clinical practice to meet the demands of modern society, our department has put clinical quality and training of ability as the core contents of conferring of professional degree. Meanwhile, the students will get corresponding reward or punishment as per their evaluation grades clinical ability. Our department will examine the postgraduates’ professional knowledge of ophthalmology before their clinical practice so as to know their mastery of basic knowledge. They will take part in the examination of theory and clinical practice both in the middle and before the end of clinical practice to encourage their learning enthusiasm.

The cultivation of postgraduates has always been a complicated and big topic in the higher education of our country, and the specificity of ophthalmology has attached arduousness and challenge to the postgraduate professional education of ophthalmology. We have made initial and beneficial attempt in the cultivation of ophthalmology postgraduates and achieved some achievements. However, many places still need to be explored and improved urgently and there is still a long way to go.