History-Informed Professional Identity Formation in The East

Organised by Teaching and Learning Innovation Centre (TALIC)

Details of the Event:

Abstract
The recently published Lancet Commission on Medicine, Nazism, and the Holocaust recommends adopting the paradigm of history-informed professional identity in medical school curricula worldwide. It specifically laments the lack of attention of medical schools to the atrocities committed by Nazi healthcare professionals, and argues that including issues of medicine during the Holocaust will contribute, and is in fact imperative to medical professional development.

This project finds merit in the Commission’s work and conclusions, but is at the same time motivated by the Commission’s neglect of similar atrocities committed by a group of Japanese healthcare professionals in Manchuria during WWII. Unit 731 has conducted horrific experiments in hundreds of thousands un-consenting Chinese citizens and prisoners of war, and unlike their Nazi counterparts, received full immunity from, and a safe haven in the USA. Yet, this history seems to be absent from the medical curricula of medical schools across Asia, including HKU.

This project aims to amend this gap, starting from HK. This project seeks to empower medical and non-medical students to become emissaries of history-informed professional identity formation at HKU MED and HKU generally. Together with the PI and Co-Is, they will be expected to develop and implement a program to teach research ethics and professionalism initially across HKU through historical case studies such as the Nazi Experiments and the operations of Unit 731.

The project consists of an online course with short, digestible videos, (akin to reels on Instagram and shorts on YouTube) that aims to communicate key information in an appealing, relevant, and effective manner to students. Each video last 2-3 minutes an includes audiovisual materials, featuring one of more of the team members, possibly with external guests.

This project is carried for students by students. Hopefully, content from this project as well as reflection and testimonials from the team members will be incorporated into the Medical Ethics and Law (MEL) course component in the pre-clinical years of the MBBS curriculum, particularly to reflect the importance for medical students to learn about historical misalignments with research ethics, as well as the correct approach to learning about these examples to cultivate appropriate scientific behaviour among future healthcare professionals. The project eventually aims to foster active learning and encourages input from participating students, especially their reflections and feedback that reflects the process of moral development through teaching, which in turns shapes the project according to the needs of students from a peer perspective.

About the Speakers

Dr. Zohar Lederman is an emergency medicine physician with a PhD in bioethics from the National University of Singapore and formal undergraduate training in the humanities with a focus on philosophy. He is currently Clinical Practitioner in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Hong Kong. Whenever not hiking or running, Zohar researches several topics in bioethics including loneliness and One Health Ethics. His work has been published in the top bioethics journals including the Journal of Medical Ethics, Bioethics, and Public Health Ethics.

For information, please contact:
Ms. Miffy Leung, TALIC
Phone: 3917 8182; Email: miffylhy@hku.hk