Healthcare professionals strengthen their research skills with the WCM-Q course

Doha: Healthcare professionals in Qatar improved their understanding of qualitative research through a course provided by Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar’s Continuing Professional Development Division (WCM-Q).

The five-day course demonstrated the merit of using qualitative research in clinical settings, where it can help researchers better understand patient experiences than using only quantitative methods.

The course also provided participants with an understanding of how the scientific process works when conducting qualitative research and explained how to incorporate scientific rigor and ethics into qualitative research studies.

Dr. Ziyad Mahfoud, research professor of population health sciences at WCM-Q, and Dr. Gladys Honein-AbouHaidar, assistant professor at the Hariri School of Nursing at the American University of Beirut, led the course.

Dr Mahfoud said: “Developing a good understanding of the fundamentals of qualitative research is very useful for healthcare researchers, as it provides opportunities to better understand the context and complexity of patient experiences in clinical settings. It can therefore help us to understand the meaning and relevance of observable phenomena in a way that eludes quantitative research methods. The course, titled Introduction to Qualitative Research, has been accredited locally by the Department of Health Professions of the Ministry of Public Health – Accreditation Section and internationally by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).