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CREAD organizes Pan-American conference on training health professionals
	The Inter-American Distance Education Consortium (CREAD), the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Latin American Institute for Educational Communication (ILCE) united this spring to organize a Pan-American satellite conference on training health workers through distance education.   Dr. Armando Villarroel, CREAD’s executive director, said this successful conference is the start of a hemispheric effort to train health professionals through the use of available technology.   “By organizing this meeting, we demonstrated the value of international cooperation. We would like to build on the momentum that has been created by inviting other governments, institutions and professionals who are interested in the improvement of the conditions of health care and health education in the Americas to join us.”   The main site of the conference was located at UNAM in Mexico City, and its satellite broadcasts were received by 18 sites in 11 countries of the American continent. An estimated 1,000 participants took part at the official subsites, in addition to an unknown number at more than 60 Mexican hospitals that also received the broadcast.   For three days in April, keynote addresses by leaders in the fields of health and distance education were relayed by satellite to each subsite, where local audiences contributed to question-and-answer sessions with speakers and participated in a specially designed program of local activities. Even though the satellite transmission did not permit synchronous two-way interaction with the subsites, the conference was designed to give participants the opportunity to interact with the main speakers through the use of e-mail. Local coordinators monitored the transmissions, led the local activities and e-mailed daily reports, comments and questions back to the keynote speakers in Mexico City. The audience at each site consisted of local Pan-American Health Organization and CREAD representatives, health professionals, university administrators and professors and other members of the public. The official languages of the conference were English, Portuguese and Spanish, and simultaneous translation in those languages was provided.   The keynote addresses of Dr. Tony Bates of the University of British Columbia and Dr. Robert Lawrence of Johns Hopkins University provided valuable insights on the most current developments in distance education and their practical application to the training of health personnel. Their presentations sparked a series of thoughtful comments, proposals and questions from the subsites. What was most interesting was the high level of acceptance demonstrated by all participants of distance education and its usefulness for training in this field.   In his address, Dr. Pedro Brito, head of the Pan-American Health Organization’s Human Resource Development Program, emphasized the need to speed up the development of high-quality distance education programs to train large numbers of health workers. He said it is imperative to create content based on national needs, improve technological capabilities for the training of health workers, learn how to make the most effective use of the new technologies and design and implement policies and regulations related to training health personnel with the participation of the national and local authorities.   Additional keynote speakers and panelists were Dr. George Alleyne, director, PAHO; Villarroel; Lic. Guillermo Kelley, director general, Latin American Institute for Educational Communication; Dr. Alejandro Pisanti, coordinator, CUAED–National Autonomous University of Mexico; Dr. Antônio Ivo de Carvalho, director, School of Public Health of Brazil; Dr. James Andrews, director of correspondence and extension studies, Southwest Texas State University; Dr. Nancy Van Wagoner, director of distance education, Acadia University, Canada; Dr. Daniel López Acuña, division head, PAHO; Dr. James Lea, director of international projects, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina; Dr. Joy Frazer, director, Center of Nursing and Health Studies, Athabasca University, Canada; Dr. Mariano García Viveros, dean, School of Medicine, UNAM; Dr. Abel Arvizu Whittemore, dean, School of Health, California State University; Dr. Cynthia Knouft, instructional multimedia consultant, University of Minnesota; and Dr. Barbara Knudson, dean and professor emerita, University of Minnesota.   Villarroel said CREAD will present a report to the Pan-American Health Organization summarizing the conclusions and recommendations produced by the conference. He also announced that the Latin American Institute for Educational Communication and CREAD have agreed to sign a Memorandum of Agreement for the use by CREAD members of the Mexican satellite facilities for educational purposes, in health education and also in other areas. CREAD is an independent inter-American distance education consortium hosted by Penn State.   Dr. Patricia A. Book, associate vice president for outreach and executive director, Division of Continuing Education at Penn State, serves on the CREAD board of directors. She praised such international efforts to meet lifelong educational needs throughout the Western Hemisphere.   “The work of the CREAD consortium and its international partners has been crucial in connecting the academic resources and technical expertise of institutions throughout the Americas with the needs of learners in a variety of professions and fields. Penn State is proud to serve as CREAD’s host institution and to support advancements in continuing and distance education worldwide,” Book said.
© 2002 Outreach Communications,   Outreach & Cooperative Extension,   The Pennsylvania State University phone: (814) 865-8108,   fax: (814) 863-2765,   e-mail: outreachnews@outreach.psu.edu