ESPE Caucasus and Central Asia School aims to support paediatricians from Central Asia and Caucasus countries who have entirely or partially completed their basic paediatric training and who are now either established in, or intending to develop a deep and continuing interest in paediatric endocrinology and diabetes.
Calendar
What to expect
- The format of this school will differ from year to year, but usually there are 3 days of intensive meetings, then a gala dinner on the evening of day 3
- On the last day of the 4-day course, there is a one-day symposium open to all interested paediatricians in the host country.
- Keynote lectures are given by experienced ESPE members and paediatric endocrinologists from Caucasus and Central Asia, with the aim of covering main topics in paediatric endocrinology.
- Lectures are supplemented by small group sessions to discuss teachers’ cases.
- Each student is asked to do a case presentation.
- The course also includes an introduction into clinical research.
- Students are encouraged to present their research projects.
- Small group teaching: Student and teachers clinical case and research project presentations
- The course is held in Russian, with English and Russian slides, and simultaneous Russian translation for English-speaking lecturers.
Before the School, fellows will be requested to register at the ESPE e-learning website, where main topics will be available in both Russian and English. Self-study of the e-learning programme prior to the course is highly recommended.
Criteria
The School is designed for paediatricians from Central Asia and Caucasus countries who have entirely or partially completed their basic paediatric training and who are now either established in, or intending to develop a deep and continuing interest in paediatric endocrinology and diabetes.
Costs
There is no registration fee for the C&CA School.
Accommodation and meals will be provided free of charge, and travel grants will cover a train or reasonably priced plane ticket to the host city (tbc) railway station or airport. Travel fees will be remunerated by the ESPE treasurer.
Participants who apply for membership for the year immediately following their attendance at a school will be entitled to one year’s free ESPE membership. Please note that this does not apply to existing ESPE members.
History
It was Prof Franco Chiarelli, then ESPE’s Secretary General, who in 2013 had the idea of starting a teaching school in the Caucasian and Central Asian (C&CA) countries. While ESPE Winter School (1995-) had proved highly successful in promoting teaching in Eastern Europe it was recognised that general knowledge of English was limited in the C&CA countries. A possible solution to this problem was to offer parallel teaching in English and Russian since although each C&CA country has its national language, Russian is the second official language in most.
Moreover, the establishment of ESPE Maghreb School (2011-), conducted entirely in the French language, had created a precedent for a further non-English-speaking ESPE School. Preparations for the first ESPE C&CA school began 2014 when Malcolm Donaldson (UK), Rasa Verkauskiene (Lithuania) and Jan Lebl (Czech Republic) from ESPE met with Rima Bazarbekova (Kazakhstan), Gulnara Rakhimova (Uzbekistan) and Gunduz Ahmadov (Azerbailjan) in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The inaugural C&CA School, generously sponsored by Ferring, took place in October 2014 with the faculty comprising Bazarbekova, Rakhimova, Ahmadov, Verkauskiene, Lebl, Franco Chiarelli (Italy), and Stenvert Drop (Netherlands). This and subsequent C&CA schools, was conducted in Russian but with dual Russian and English slide projection, and simultaneous translation of lectures by the non-Russian-speaking teachers into Russian. The annual C&CA schools continued until 2019, when the Covid pandemic restrictions resulted in cancellation in 2020-21 and when instability of the local situation in Armenia together with transport problems related to the Russian conflict with Ukraine caused postponement in autumn 2023.
Schools 2015-2019
Following the successful school in Almaty (2014), two further schools were held under Rasa Verkauskiene’s leadership in Azerbaijan (2015) and Uzbekistan (2016). In 2017, Stenvert Drop was replaced by Malcolm Donaldson, and Alina German took over as coordinator for Tajikistan. In 2018 the school was held in Kyrgyzstan, when Malika Alimussina replaced Gulnora Rackhimov. The following school was in Nur Sultan in 2019. At this meeting, the student faculty consisted of 21 doctors from Armenia (1), Azerbaijan (3), Georgia (1), Kazakhstan (10), Kyrgyzstan (1), Russia (2), Tajikistan (1), Ukraine (1) and Uzbekistan (1). At each C&CA school there has been an excursion and an opportunity for the whole faculty to enjoy the cultural richness of the host country.
