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| OBITUARY |
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| Year : 2018 | Volume
: 31
| Issue : 1 | Page : 61 |
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Obituary - EfH Bernard Groosjohan
Michael Glasser1, Danette McKinley2, Urvi Doshi3, Payal Bansal4, Maaike Flinkenflögel5
1 Co–Editor, Education for Health, University of Illinois, Rockford, Illinois, USA
2 Co–Editor, Education for Health, Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research, Philadelphia, PA, USA
3 Manuscript & Research Co-Ordinator, Education for Health, Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Nashik, Maharashtra, India
4 Managing Editor, Education for Health, Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Nashik, Maharashtra, India
5 KIT Health, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| Date of Web Publication | 14-Aug-2018 |
Correspondence Address:
Maaike Flinkenflögel
KIT Health, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam
The Netherlands
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/1357-6283.239053
How to cite this article:
Glasser M, McKinley D, Doshi U, Bansal P, Flinkenflögel M. Obituary - EfH Bernard Groosjohan. Educ Health 2018;31:61 |
It is with great sadness we heard that Bernard Groosjohan recently passed away. Bernard spent a large portion of his life on strengthening the training of doctors and other health professionals in Mozambique and Sub-Sahara Africa. As the founding dean of the Universidade Católica de Moçambique (UCM) in Beira, he strongly advocated for a new generation of medical doctors with a focus on primary health care and community-oriented primary care to improve the health of the Mozambican community. His trajectory, working and development from an early age, provided the experience to tailor a medical education program involving a profound sense of social accountability, together with Bernard serving as a model for future generations of health professionals at UCM about how to translate good intentions into action.
Bernard was a member of the Network: Towards Unity for Health for many years. He would share his experiences from Mozambique with colleagues during the Network conferences on a yearly basis. His stories of how they set up training with and for the students from Beira in Mozambican slums, his experiences of founding a new medical school, the development of the problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum and his struggles on how to implement the same curriculum at the Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo were interesting and useful for both colleagues and students.
A strong advocate for education as the means for development and social transformation, he became an authority in transmitting the liberating benefits of PBL for new generations of learners. This was all the more important in the context of the developing world he worked in, with a long history of colonialist oppression and regressive educational policies. He was persistent in his endeavors to influence different Mozambican educational institutions in the introduction of active and collaborative learning from an early age.
For several years, he was the associate secretary general for the Network. Reflecting on his life and contributions, Bernard was a kind person whose positive influence will be remembered for a long time and whose legacy will continue in a full generation of health professionals that were trained under his auspices. The commitment and passion for what he did inspired many to act and had the contagious effect of empowering many of his students into directive positions that have pioneered the growth of the School of Medicine and the Masters Program in Public Health at UCM, among other programs at the Faculty of Health Professions at which he was the dean for many years.
Bernard Groosjohan will be greatly missed; we are saddened by his death and the loss of a vital member of the Network: Towards Unity for Health.
Respectfully submitted – Maaike Flinkenflogel, Francisco Lamus Lemus, Michael Glasser, Danette McKinley.
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