Professor Lorna McKee has just returned from a very successful visit to the Institute of Medical Sociology, Health Services Research and Rehabilitation Science, (IMHR) at the University of Cologne, Germany.
IMHR is a joint scientific institution at the Faculty of Human Sciences and the Faculty of Medicine (School of Medicine) at the University of Cologne with the core mission to ‘deliver knowledge to enhance care and health’, with a primary focus on two areas of research, ‘care, context of care and quality’ and ‘organisations, work and health’.
Lorna was the guest of Professor Dr Holger Pfaff, Institute Director, for a two week period and was involved in delivering an intensive teaching programme on two themes, ‘Undertaking Interdisciplinary Research’ and ‘Conducting Mixed Methods’ research in the context of health services and health care research. The teaching spanned two consecutive weekends and was delivered to a group of Masters level students studying Rehabilitation Sciences. The students were expected to develop a well-evidenced, mixed methods research proposal which drew on their learning during the workshops and to make a presentation of their ideas on the final day of the course.
The visit also provided an opportunity to consolidate existing links between the HSRU and IMHR and to build on collaborative research with Professor Pfaff around the themes of social capital and health organisation performance and quality. Professor Dr Pfaff spent the month of August 2014 in HSRU funded by a fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh/Caledonia visiting researcher scheme. He will return to Aberdeen in March 2015 to continue to develop both research and teaching interfaces and opportunities.
Lorna’s visit was supported by a competitive award from the International Scholars/Guest Professorship Scheme administered bythe University of Cologne, International Office