IDEAL program in brief

The courses are delivered over a week to students of Université Paris Descartes (FR), Edinburgh Medical University (UK), Universiteit Antwerpen (BEL) and Università Cattolica di Roma (IT).

After being successfully implemented for 3 years in Paris, Roma and Edinburgh, this curriculum is then offered as an alternative to the classical curriculum and is recognized with 5 ECTS credits in Paris and Roma.

The IDEAL infectious diseases Summer School provides advanced teaching for European undergraduate students with the involvement of European and Ugandan teachers sharing their invaluable practical experience.

The program focuses on infections in emerging countries (mainly in Africa), current major “hot topics” in infectious diseases, such as immigration burdens, and outbreaks.

IDEAL distance learning provides all the teaching materials implemented in Work Packages 1 and 2 to the participating Ugandan partners (Mary Lacor Hospital in Gulu and Mother Kevin Postgraduate Medical School in Kampala).

The IDEAL project improves the quality and relevance of undergraduate infectious diseases teaching across Europe. It creates a forum of experienced teachers, serving as a reference for countries worldwide. The project develops a strong, shared expertise among medical students in Europe, enhanced their international perspectives, and promotes global health concepts at an early stage of their undergraduate medical curricula. It also encourages teacher and student mobility by creating a strong network of interactions between European universities and beyond.

Additionally, the IDEAL project has been developing sustainable, high-level learning tools (tailored courses and an e-learning platform), which are shared with other partners from Europe and other countries facing similar needs. 

The IDEAL+ Teacher Training Seminar is a 3-day seminar opened to 12-15 trainee medical educators each year. It aims at promoting excellence in teaching and skills development by:

• Improving the level and relevance of European medical educators’ teaching
• Disseminating more accurate and innovative teaching techniques
• Better addressing students’ need for practical training at an undergraduate level
• Developing high-level teaching tools that will enhance exchanges between medical educators and create a community of teachers around Europe

IDEAL+ Student Infectious Diseases Training Course is an intensive course of practical teaching on Infectious Diseases for undergraduate students delivered over one week by a team of European infectious diseases medical educators. It aims at tackling skills gap on infectious diseases among European medical students with a renewed and improved teaching to:

• Better prepare medical students to the challenges of Infectious Diseases control
• Develop a strong common knowledge in infectious diseases among European students based on a renewed and improved teaching approach
• Reduce the gap between European medical curricula, thus promoting undergraduate students’ mobility

The IDEAL+ digital learning platform provides open-source resources developed within the program, focusing on innovative teaching methods for medical educators and on infectious diseases for undergraduate medical students.

The IDEALiTER Advanced Student Infectious Diseases Training Course is an intensive one-week course focused on practical teaching of infectious diseases for undergraduate, postgraduate medical and healthcare students, as well as professionals, such as residents, early postgraduate students and other healthcare workers including pharmacists and nurses, who are on the frontlines of infectious diseases crises. The course is delivered by a team of European infectious diseases medical educators.

The course aims at training healthcare students and professionals to the challenges raised by infectious diseases by:

• Creating a joint interconnected European curriculum based on innovative engaging training approaches
• Evaluating the quality of the training provided

The courses focus on six main topics: (1) infections in the pregnant host, (2) infections in the immunocompromised host, (3) Travelers return fever, (4) pandemic preparedness, (5) multi-resistant infections and (6) vaccination hesitancy.

IDEALiTER aims at disseminating the core principles of the program among external institutions and further disseminate innovative teaching methods among medical and healthcare educators and trainers through annual seminars.

The main goals of the IDEALiTER “Train the trainers” (also known as “TTT”) seminar are to:

• Train infectious diseases trainers from partnering institutions in the skills required for the advanced ID course (WP2) including flip classroom approaches, case-based clinical reasoning, simulation, debriefing, gaming and hybrid synchronous and asynchronous methods, all theoretically supported by Chi’s ICAP model
• Coach trainers who have completed the TTT seminars to train and mentor their peers in implementing hybrid teaching and learning methods

 

IDEALiTER partners also mentor new partner institutions to:

• Develop partnerships between the 5 infectious diseases partnering institutions and 5 new European institutions interested in creating innovative teaching activities for undergraduate and postgraduate medical students
• Improve the skills of a large range of European healthcare professionals. External institutions will be selected with a specific focus on areas with the highest healthcare needs to maximize the program’s impact
• Support the sustainability and dissemination of the achievements established of the IDEAL programs
• Create a new model of dissemination, where each teaching partner mentor an external European institution into the program

The IDEALiTER annual summer school is dedicated to public health issues, targeting postgraduate and advanced undergraduate medical students.

The program pays attention to antibiotic stewardship, basics of infectious diseases epidemiology, vaccinology, pandemic preparedness and communication with a focus on trust building and health promotion.

The summer school brings together students and trainers from all participating institutions, fostering exchanges and strengthening professional bonds.

The IDEAL4COM three-day clinical Interprofessional multidisciplinary medical communication workshops place interprofessional communication at their core, using infectious diseases as a tool rather than a simple disciplinary focus.

The courses focus on three main topics: (1) Infection Control and Prevention with a focus on vaccination, (2) Acute Respiratory Infections with epidemic potential and (3) Maternal and neonatal Infections, using high-fidelity simulations and serious games to target key tomorrow’s challenges (vaccine hesitancy, telemedicine, crisis management, bioethical dilemmas, AI-enhanced communication, online resource evaluation).

The specific objectives of this work package are to:

• strengthen communication and improve collaboration (1) among healthcare professionals, (2) between healthcare professionals and public health organizations, (3) with patients and (4) across European countries
• promote internationalization at home and emphasize a shared European IDEAL culture among future healthcare professionals and educators
• provide skills in communication and interprofessionality that are currently not addressed in European healthcare curricula to go over infectious diseases, bioethical challenges and increase AI use for crisis communication
• address public health intervention, One Health, vaccinology, migrant health and European-level disease control
• connect healthcare disciplines and educational systems at local, national and European levels, fostering diversity in training and interconnected European higher education systems

The annual IDEAL4COM “Train the Trainers” seminars train young and mid-career medical and healthcare educators (nursing, midwifery, pharmacy, physiotherapy…) as well as experts in medical education in innovative teaching methods with a strong focus on interprofessional communication in order to prepare them to teach interprofessional communication to their students and interns.

The training, both in large and small groups, focuses on active learning teaching methods to:

• Apply these methods with an interprofessional group of medical and healthcare students
• Adapt communication skills to diverse disciplines and cultures
• Address “Situational Awareness”, that is the understanding of an environment, its elements, and how it changes with respect to time or other factors

IDEAL4COM Summer Schools bring together students and teachers from diverse healthcare and public health backgrounds from all partner institutions, using emerging public health issues and infectious diseases with epidemic potential as a frame.

The summer schools offer an extensive immersion into the different dimensions of managing emerging infectious diseases with epidemic potential, with a strong emphasis on communication.

The sessions rely on highly interactive methods (role plays, simulations, hackathons and escape rooms) to emphasize engaging communication training about current healthcare issues (vaccinal hesitation, crisis scenario on epidemics, public health communication…).

Topics are discussed at 4 key levels: (1) with the general population to implement prevention and information campaigns, (2) between different healthcare professions to ensure seamless collaboration in clinical and community settings, (3) at the national level by engaging public health stakeholders and policymakers to coordinate the response to infectious diseases threats and (4) at the European level by working with relevant organizations to promote cross-border communication and crisis management.

The target audience includes advanced undergraduate and postgraduate medical and healthcare students. 

After more than a decade of existence, building a sustainable, dynamic and interconnected community in health professionals engaged in education, innovative teaching and European joint initiatives is IDEAL’s next logical step.

Based on long-term collaboration, knowledge exchange and professional development, IDEAL4COM connects IDEAL, IDEAL+, IDEALITER and IDEAL4COM participants through a pan-European educator network to:

• Establish an infectious diseases teaching network

Students, educators, clinicians and policymakers share a common network, improving interdisciplinary collaboration and enabling knowledge-sharing on best practices, research and teaching innovations.

• Promote advancing innovative teaching

IDEAL4COM provides e-learning content and educational activities, introducing teachers, educators and students to new topics, new techniques and approaches, supporting faculty development and innovative teaching strategies across Europe.

• Strengthen European collaboration

IDEAL4COM implements joint courses, summer schools and interprofessional workshops, advocating to harmonize infectious diseases education across Europe and increase visibility and impact on healthcare communication, strengthening engagement among alumni, teachers and healthcare professionals.