From a Training Day in Tanzania

Greetings again. I hope you’re doing well.

I’m writing this blog post in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. (By the time you read it, though, I might be back in America.) My work here has included facilitating a research communication skills training day at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS).

Whereas regular AuthorAID workshops usually run several days, this event ran 7 hours. Thus, the material was more condensed. Most of the core lecture content still was included. However, there was less discussion and there was no small-group work.

The lectures were on 5 topics:

• Approaching a writing project
• Writing and publishing scientific papers
• Writing case reports
• Preparing grant proposals
• Giving oral and poster presentations

The main slides from the lectures appear in the MUHAS training-day material in the AuthorAID Resource Library.

In keeping with a request from MUHAS, I also prepared a list of goals and objectives for the training day. This list too appears in the MUHAS training-day material.

If you’ll provide research-communication training, feel free to use or adapt this material. Feel free also to use these items in self-study.

Some training-day attendees said they plan to use the material in training others. For example, one mentioned planning to adapt some content to use in teaching medical residents. I like to see AuthorAID material receive wide use.

Special thanks to the training-day organizers for their excellent arrangements. I also thank the attendees for their participation and INASP for its support.

Until the next post—

Barbara