Four Mountcrest University College faculty from Ghana are visiting Penn State College of Medicine for professional development. The four are Judith Osae-Larbi, Harriet Abbey, Faustina Oware-Gyekye and Demi Safo.
This has a been a month of firsts for Judith Osae-Larbi – first trip to the United States, first look at where some of the cocoa beans from her native country end up and, most importantly, firsthand experience with a whole new way of teaching.
“We are used to the traditional lecturing method back home. Here we are seeing active learning methods and it is very, very exciting,” said the visiting health psychology teacher, one of four faculty members from MountCrest University College in Ghana visiting Penn State College of Medicine recently.
For Harriet Abbey, who teaches biology at MountCrest, the most exciting thing about the partnership between the two colleges is the opportunity for her students.
“Our students are coming in right from high school so it will be exciting to help them learn these different techniques at a very young age,” she said.
The need for care is great in their area. “We need medical doctors everywhere,” she said.
“Doctors are needed especially in rural areas where the poor and vulnerable are,” added Faustina Oware-Gyekye, a nurse and midwife who was most impressed by mannequins used in the Clinical Simulation Center that simulate the labor and delivery process. “Our students are not exposed to anything like that before they go to clinic and see this.”
The promise of better health care for Africans living in the rural areas surrounding Larteh, Ghana is through a partnership with the College of Medicine that has helped open the doors to the country’s first private medical school.
Read more about the partnership in this Penn State Medicine article.