Drs. Helena Prior Filipe, chair of the Simulation-Based Education committee and Mathys Labuschagnev, co-chair, organized a keynote address at the South African Association of Health Educationalists (SAAHE 2025). The talk, “Reconstructing Professional Identity in Health Professions Education,” explored themes of re-imagining health professions education for a thriving future. Participants were encouraged to explore how they can intentionally reconstruct an authentic professional identity and be connected to a purpose.
This keynote invited health professions educators to explore the triad of Revive, Renew, and Reconnect at the heart of an evolving dual identity as clinicians and educators. Drawing from the lived experience of the ophthalmologist-educator, it delves into the liminal space between clinical practice and scholar education, a fertile ground for transformation, growth, and professional identity formation.
We began by reviving the wisdom of Osler — a call to reintegrate the humanistic, relational core of medicine into contemporary education. We renew our educational strategies: from Visual Thinking Strategies and design thinking to teams’ project-based learning, group mentoring, and competence building, to technology-enhanced education and online social learning. More than trends, these tools unveil pathways for meaningful, inclusive, and adaptive learning.
Finally, we reconnected with our purpose, with leaders in education and clinicians-educators aiming to bring together and with one another, those in remote and underserved settings through group mentoring and the formation of communities of practice. These communities become ecosystems of mutual growth, capacity-building, and resilience, forming a powerful network of clinician-educators.
This keynote challenged health professions educators to reconceptualize themselves not as isolated instructors but as vital nodes in an expansive, evolving network, a movement of connected, compassionate educators. Through building capacity, empowering faculty, and reaching outward, we can rekindle the spirit of medicine and create successful, long-lasting, interdisciplinary communities for the future of healthcare education.
Slides of the talk are available to download here. H Prior Filipe. SAAHE 2025, UFS, Bloemfontein, 2-7-25.pdf. figshare. Presentation. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.29482070.v2
Dr. Labuschagnev further presented the paper on our simulationg-based education infographics “An illustration is worth ten thousand words: an extraordinary approach to presenting information through infographics.” (Labuschagne, MJ. Du Preez, I. Prior Filipe, H.).
Clinical Simulation Unit, School of Medicine at University of the Free State, South Africa