The 2015 Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG 2015) take account of the developments in European higher education since 2005, such as the shift to student-centred learning and the need for flexible learning paths and the recognition of competencies gained outside formal education. In Eastern European Medical Programmes taught in English, however, the number of international students has exploded in the last decade, while the number of teaching staff has not been increased reasonably. The teaching workload of academics increased enormously, without meaningful adjustments in teaching traditions sustainable for large heterogenous populations of international students. This has resulted in considerably high rates of mental health-related complaints from both students and academic staff in these Institutions. As the medical profession itself is notoriously linked to a relatively high lifetime risk for mental health and associated chronic diseases, and medical education ought to equip all doctors with skills to cope with these increased risks in a preventative or protective way, strategic investments must target the development of the curricula of foundational years in medical education which should help transform current teaching traditions into a sustainable and efficient training beyond ESG standards. To facilitate achieving this goal, this project investigates a key foundational course subject Human Anatomy for its potential to be repurposed for the above-mentioned sustainability criteria. The key intellectual output of this project will be a guidebook on 'How to Manage Human Anatomy Courses for Internationalized and Sustainable Medical Education'. From 2023 the World Federation of Medical Education (WFME) will introduce an obligatory accreditation process for global medical education institutions providing a medical curriculum in English language. At present, Eastern-European Medical Schools in this category are not yet eligible for accreditation by WFME.

Sustainable Development Goals

Masaryk University is committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to improve the conditions and quality of life on our planet by 2030.