Optimising Assessment in Health Professions Education through Quality Assurance

Bunmi Malau-Aduli is a Professor of Medical Education in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. She is the Co-chair of the international Australasian Collaboration for Clinical Assessment in Medicine (ACCLAiM). She is also an Adjunct Professor at the James Cook University’s College of Medicine and Dentistry, Queensland, Australia where she previously served as Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching and Academic Lead for Assessment and Evaluation. She has co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, two books, four book chapters and a range of refereed conference proceedings. She has also received a number of national and international academic and research awards. She holds editorship roles on two medical education journals. Her research interests are quality assurance of assessment processes, evaluation of health systems and health education interventions, students’ career choices and transition experiences, cognitive decision-making processes and intercultural competence. 

Richard Hays is a Professor of Remote Medicine and Health, at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia. He entered academic life after 10 years of full-time practice, initially as the equivalent of a Rural Medical Generalist (primary care plus procedural Obstetrics) in smaller communities. He has since maintained regular part-time in clinical practice, mostly in regional/rural settings in Australia and also with the NHS in the UK. He remains a true generalist at primary care level, competent across the breadth of Australian general/family practice, with a strong interest in the health of underserved populations. Richard has had substantive leadership roles in several medical schools, mostly around curriculum and assessment design, implementation and evaluation, primarily with new, rural-oriented medical programs, building on doctoral level qualifications in medicine and educational psychology. He has also participated in about 35 program quality assurance processes in the UK, Australia, Europe, North America, Asia and the Western Pacific region. His current academic roles carry responsibility for rural practice training and research in a substantial part of western Queensland. He also has roles in undergraduate medical teaching, research student supervision and faculty development. 

Vishna Devi V Nadarajah is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Institutional Development and International and Professor of Human Biology at the International Medical University in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Her leadership portfolio at IMU includes the strategic development of academic programmes, diversification of international partnerships, enhancement of educational activities via technology enhancing learning, talent and continuous professional development. She is passionate about faculty and professional staff development, and prioritizes inclusion especially for the advancement of scholarship. She has published research papers in both biomedical sciences and medical education; and supervises research students and reviews for indexed and international journals. She is currently a Board member of the AMEE (An International Association for Health Professions Education) ASPIRE Awards of Excellence, the Deputy Editor of the pre-eminent journal Medical Education , Core leadership and founding member of Mentors Across Borders and Advisory Board Member of several other international HPE journals. She was awarded the Malaysian Women’s Weekly (2012), Great Women of Our Time award for her contribution in Science and Technology in Malaysia and in 2018, was awarded the National Outstanding Educator Award (university category), awarded by Private Education Cooperation Malaysia. She was recently nominated and appointed as Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey, United Kingdom, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.