Title:	Comprehensive Course on Latin-American Tropical Medicine (COCLATM)
Keywords:	Tropical medicine Public Health Neglected diseases Emerging diseases Diagnostics Communicable diseases
Country:	Venezuela
Institution:	Venezuela - Instituto de Medicina Tropical, Universidad Central de Venezuela
Course coordinator:	Prof. Oscar Noya Gonzalez
Date start:	2025-04-21
Date end:	2025-05-30
About duration and dates:	Total duration: 6 weeks (from Monday to Friday, full time) 31 Contact hours/week, 5 days/week. 7 hours self-study hours/week Application deadline: 3 weeks prior to course start
Classification:	advanced optional
Mode of delivery:	Face to face
Course location: Instituto de Medicina Tropical, Universidad Central de Venezuela and Chichiriviche de la Costa- Venezuela (Fieldtrip)
ECTS credit points:	7 ECTS credits
SIT: TOTAL SIT: 225 h - Face-to-face hours: 188 1. Community Based Learning, fieldtrip (32 h) 2. Lectures (65h) 3. Project Based Learning (16 h) 4. Clinical Teaching (30 h) 5. Laboratory practice (45 h) - Self-study hours: 37 (private reading and intervention proposal preparation)
Language:	Spanish
Description: At the end of this course, participants will be able to: 1. Propose a public health intervention based on a tropical health problem, including community engagement. 2. Discuss etiology, pathogenesis, general clinical features, diagnosis, management of the most important viral, bacterial, mycotic and parasitic diseases occurring in patients from the Latin-American tropics. 3. Identify and collect reservoir animals and vectors, following biosafety measures. 4. Identify poisonous animals and propose a patient management plan to follow in cases of animal poisoning. 5. Apply laboratory procedures in detecting pathologies from patient samples, and identifying and differentiating vectors.
Focus or specific features: Pre-registration period: November the 1st 2024 to November 30th 2024.
Assessment Procedures: Formative assessment: 1. Laboratory exercises for general microscope skills and knowledge on diagnosis tools on given conditions will be assessed with rubrics. Summative assessment: 1. Theoretical evaluations: 25% • During the different modules of the course, students will have multiple choice quizzes without prior notice, which will be carried out at the beginning or end of the activities, as decided by the instructor (20 minutes each). At least four short quizzes will be made. 2. Continued assessment during the course: 25% Students´ engagement in discussions will be assessed continuously during the contact hours on a weekly basis using rubrics designed by the facilitators team. 3. Intervention proposal presentation: 50%. A public health intervention proposal will be developed in couples based on a previous problem assignment at the beginning of the course. This will be defended in an oral 20 minute presentation per student with audiovisual aids. Assessment will be carried out by peers and an expert panel, aided with rubrics designed for that purpose. A re-sit for a failing grade on the presentation (< 10/20) will be allowed as long as the total mark in previous assessments is 12 out of 20 points or better. The re-sit presentation has to be done three weeks after the on-campus week (online synchronous).
Content: 1. Neglected, emerging and re-emerging tropical diseases in adults and children 2. Useful tools for the epidemiological study of tropical diseases 3. Public Health interventions in the Latin-American context 4. Relevant topics in the treatment and diagnosis (microbiological, parasitological, immunological and molecular diagnosis) of tropical diseases 5. Poisonous animals of medical importance 6. Reasons for consultation and frequent findings in infectious diseases of the tropics 7. Frequent endemics in the tropics o Tropical Gastroenterology o Tropical Ophthalmology o Tropical Cardiology o Tropical Dermatology o Tropical Neurology o Overlapped zoonosis o Respiratory pathologies in the Latin-American tropics 8. Opportunistic infections in the Latin-American tropics 9. Tropical diseases in pregnancy 10. Covid-19 in the tropics 11. Special laboratory based investigations, including microscopy
Methods: 1. Lectures will introduce fundamental knowledge to students about etiology, pathogenesis, clinical features, diagnosis, management and community control of the most important viral, bacterial, mycotic and parasitic diseases as well as animal poisoning occurring in the tropics. 2. Clinical teaching: students will engage in clinical outpatient consultation with tropical medicine and infectiology specialists, to practice clinical reasoning, clinical evaluation on their own and discuss action plans with the team. 3. Laboratory practice: students will have the opportunity to develop microscopic diagnosis skills in laboratory practice hours, looking at biological samples obtained in the Venezuelan endemic areas. Moreover, the methods and analysis of other diagnostic tools (such as serology, immunochromatography, etc.) will be learned. 4. Community Based Learning will take place during the fieldwork week, where students will observe and apply previous knowledge during patient and placement evaluations, capture vectors and reservoirs and engage in field discussion within the team. 5. Project Based Learning: At the beginning of the course each student will be assigned a general public health topic at random. Students will prepare their project and will have five weeks for consultation and discussion. During the last week they will discuss their projects and at the end they will present them for final assessment.
Prerequisites: 1. Medical Doctor degree. 2. At least two years clinical work experience is desirable. 3. Spanish B2 level
Attendance: Maximum of 16 students per course Maximum number of tropEd students: 4 Minimum student number: 10
Selection: For tropEd students: First come, first served principle.
Fees: 1650 Euros for Latin-American students and 1850 Euros for non-LA students
Scholarships: N/A
tropEd accreditation: Accredited in Edinburgh, Sept. 2024; The accreditation is valid until Sept. 2029
Remarks: This course was delivered in 2019, 2021 and 2023 for national MD students, coming from all over the country. Student evaluation in the 3 cohorts showed that the course is highly appreciated, being the fieldtrip the most valuable learning experience. Lectures, laboratory practice and patient consultation were also evaluated as very good. A collateral achievement of the earlier courses was the maintenance of communities of practice on tropical medicine highly active until now. Students are exposed to a rich variety of learning experiences with patients and biological samples with tropical diseases and experts from various specialties related to these pathologies.
Email Address:	noyaoo@yahoo.com
Date Of Record Creation:	2024-10-10 06:18:59 (W3C-DTF)
Date Of Record Release:	2024-10-10 12:28:00 (W3C-DTF)
Date Record Checked:	2024-10-10 (W3C-DTF)
Date Last Modified:	2024-11-12 09:05:09 (W3C-DTF)