The Netherlands Association for Medical Education (NVMO) is an independent association that carries out activities for anyone involved in medical and health care education in the Netherlands and Flanders. The association has around 1000 members and resides in Utrecht. The objectives are:
- To organise an annual national NVMO conference on medical education
- To publish the Dutch Journal for Medical Education TMO, a national medium for publications on medical educational research and development
- To stimulate faculty development for medical and health care teachers
- Keeping contact with the government and national as well as international organizations on medical education, such as the Association for Medical Education in Europe and the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME)
- To commission cooperation and national policy in the field of research and development of medical and health care education
The NVMO is open to all medical and health care teachers in undergraduate and postgraduate education, as well as students and educationalists and all practising physicians, dentists, veterinarians, paramedics and others that are involved in in health care education.
Members receive the journal TMO and are informed of activities of the NVMO, AMEE and WFME.
The NVMO, founded in 1972, is a formal association in the legal sense and has a deposited statute and bylaws. It has a seven member board, with a mixture of persons with clinical, preclinical and educational background, two students, one Flanders member; one member is currently president of the Central College of Medical Specialities and one is a professor of veterinary education. The board convenes three times a year. From the board an executive committee, consisting of the president, the treasurer and the secretary, takes care of daily affairs. The board, all non-paid professionals, heavily leans on a paid coordinating assistant who has been in charge as a continuity factor for decades, while board members serve 3 to 6 year terms.
The association has two major activities: the publication of a Dutch Journal for Medical Education with six issues per year and a yearly two day NVMO-conference with currently about 700 participants and over 150 presentations. The journal editor and conference organizer-in-charge are permanent advisors of the board. A recent third activity is a yearly one day scientific meeting for all PhD students engaged in medical education research.
Currently about 65 PhD students work on such projects and publish on average one international article per year. An important and fruitful further feature of NVMO is the existence of special interest groups. Members of the association with common interest are stimulated to establish interinstitutional expert groups on selected topics within medical education under the leadership of one or a small group of core Special Interest Group members. SIG activities, such as meetings, symposia, brochures, research projects and study tours are financially supported as far as possible, if considered suitable within the NVMO purpose.
Currently, the NVMO has the following SIGs: Medical teaching in practice; E-learning; Faculty development; Professional behaviour; Portfolio; Skills & simulation techniques; Multi-cultural education; Curriculum development in postgraduate training; Communication skills, Simulated & standardized patients and Science education. The NVMO board has invited each of these groups to write an article for Medical Teacher on a topic of choice, to be published in the coming years for the twice-a-year NVMO series.