BSMU held an educational conference in English for the first time

On March 14, 2023, the All-Russian educational and Methodological Conference with international participation "Internationalization of medical education: experience, problems, prospects" was held at BSMU. A distinctive feature of this event was that it was fully conducted and prepared in English. An event of this format is held at the university for the first time. The conference was organized by the educational and methodological Department of the University.

Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Damir Valishin addressed the guests and participants with a welcoming speech: "The relevance of our conference is connected with modern requirements to increase the export of educational services."

The conference was opened by foreign guests: Soatboi Yuldashev, Head of the Department of Pharmacology of Samarkand State Medical University, and Imran Aslam, Assistant of the Department of Pharmacology (Uzbekistan), Dinara Ermekova, Ph.D., representative of the Kyrgyz State Medical Academy, Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of Jordan ( Amman) Nail Bulatov.

Invited guests, professors, associate professors, assistants and teachers of our university exchanged experience on the organization of training of foreign students at a medical university, problems and peculiarities arising in working with foreign citizens. The speakers discussed the problems of education, upbringing and adaptation related to the national and religious characteristics of students, shared their work experience and offered their directions in solving emerging issues. The discussion was moderated by the head of the Department of Hospital Therapy No. 1 of BSMU, Professor Elvira Mutalova.

In particular, the conference was attended by Lyubov Linnik, Acting Head of the Department of Russian Language, Linguistics and International Communication of BSMU, with a report "Codification of academic discourse and means and methods of its decodification": "In my opinion, this conference has become an important event in the life of our university, because the education of foreign citizens is not only our reality, but also and the main development trend contributing to the entry of our university to the international level. It is important for the entire university staff, and not only teachers, to develop in this direction, to learn to create conditions for the social and academic adaptation of foreign students. All the speakers were very interesting, almost every report talked about the need to overcome the language barrier in the medical field. To do this,

we need to create a language space together with subject teachers. I concluded that we need to meet more often, communicate, create special textbooks and manuals, dictionaries that will help our students immerse themselves in the Russian-speaking medical environment."

"The idea of the conference was suggested by the rector of our university, Valentin Nikolaevich. Colleagues from foreign universities gladly responded to the invitation, as they have little experience in teaching foreign students. We would especially like to mention the speakers of our university, who demonstrated a confident command of the language, presented interesting and creative presentations," Alevtina Melnikova, head of the Educational and Methodological Department of BSMU, shared her impressions about the event.

At the end of the discussion, the organizers and participants were invited to continue the experience of holding conferences in English at our university in order to exchange teaching experience between colleagues within the university and other educational organizations.

Based on the materials of the conference, a collection was published, which included more than 70 articles in English. The publications reflect the work experience of teachers from the Russian Federation, employees of BSMU, as well as colleagues from universities in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Jordan, France (link to the conference collection