From 10 to 28 October 2022, the University of Pavia hosted 24 professionals from the medical Universities of Kazakhstan (Asfendyarov National Medical University, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Kazakhstan’s Medical University), Tajikistan (Avicenna Tajik State Medical University, Khatlon State Medical University, Institute of postgraduate education in health sphere of Republic of Tajikistan), and Uzbekistan (Bukhara State Medical Institute, Tashkent State Medical Institute). The pediatricians came to Pavia to participate in ‘The Training in new teaching techniques (pediatrics, pediatric surgery, neuropsychiatry) of academic staff involved in the new integrated curricula‘, organized in the framework of the Erasmus+ Capacity Building Project ChildCA – Improvement of children care teaching as a template for modernizing postgraduate medical education in Central Asia. The project is coordinated by the University of Pavia – prof. Gian Battista Parigi and GLOBEC – Global Center for Strategic Engagement.

The training was structured over three weeks, during which the participants rotated among the University of Pavia, Jagiellonian University, and Freiburg University: every week in a new university, new hospital, and new country.

The activities included:

  • Practical part: shadowing pediatricians, pediatric surgeons, and neuropsychiatric specialists,
  • Theoretical part: lectures in data mining/literature search, pediatrics, pediatric infectious diseases, x-ray demonstration, anatomy, and distance learning methodologies.

In the long run, the training is intended to bring new knowledge and expertise to the pediatric curricula of the Central Asian partner institutions.