University of Glasgow and University of Western Cape collaborate on a Flying Faculty week

One of the components of The MalDent Project has been the organisation and delivery of short periods of intensive teaching by external subject experts for the BDS students at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS). This model, known as Flying Faculty, provides additional support to the BDS degree programme until the Department of Oral Health Sciences at KUHeS has recruited a full team of academic staff covering all relevant clinical specialties.

In 2024, a UK Flying Faculty team provided a very successful week of intensive teaching in Restorative Dentistry and Special Care Dentistry. Recently, during the week beginning 5th May 2025, a week of teaching in Dental Public Health, Head & Neck Pathology and Oral Medicine was delivered for BDS 3 and BDS 4 students in Lilongwe.

The Dental Public Health teaching was delivered by Professor Lorna Macpherson from the University of Glasgow. Lorna needs no introduction to regular readers, as she has played a major role in multiple components of The MalDent Project. This was Lorna’s fourth visit to Malawi and as you will see in a future blog post, Lorna stayed on for a second week to learn more of the Malawian healthcare and educational environment relevant to the ongoing work to establish a National Child Oral Health Improvement Plan for Malawi.

A very exciting element of this Flying Faculty week was the involvement of two colleagues from the University of Western Cape Dental Faculty in South Africa. So far, the visiting Flying Faculty teams have been drawn from the UK, but the ambition is to increasingly involve academics from within Africa. This will not only build local networks and a community of expertise but also be a far more cost-effective enterprise.

When I visited Cape Town last year I met Professor Amir Afrogheh, the Head of Department of Head & Neck Pathology, who had indicated he would be very keen to support undergraduate teaching at KUHeS. When I approached him earlier this year to follow up on his generous offer, not only did he agree to participate as a Flying Faculty member but also recommended his colleague, Dr Anneze Odendaal, to deliver parallel teaching to his own in Oral Medicine. It was a tremendous pleasure for us to welcome Amir and Anneze on their first visit to Malawi.

The week commenced with a ‘get to know you’ session with both the BDS 3 and BDS 4 classes. Following some initial comments from Dr Peter Chimimba and myself, the members of the Flying Faculty team introduced themselves.

After this initial session, the work began in earnest. Apart from two sessions with BDS 4, most of Lorna’s teaching was to the BDS 3 class. These sessions took place in the Conference Room of the Kamuzu Central Hospital Dental Department.

In addition to lecture style teaching, Lorna incorporated multiple small group exercises, which were very popular with the students:

Our lectures were very friendly and interactive. I extremely enjoyed the group discussion sections and presenting what we discussed to the class.

BDS 3 student

The teaching of Head & Neck Pathology and Oral Medicine took place in the newly built Confucius Institute on the Lower Campus of Kamuzu University of Health Sciences. Each half-day session included pathology teaching from Prof Afrogheh …

… and Oral Medicine teaching from Dr Odendaal:

One of the issues with the Flying Faculty model of delivering teaching is that it is very intensive, both for the staff and students. The BDS 3 students received their Dental Public Health teaching in the mornings, and during the afternoons reverted to their normal timetable, which reduced the teaching intensity. However, the BDS 4 students received teaching during both the mornings and afternoons, including two Dental Public Health sessions in addition to the Oral Medicine and Head & Neck Pathology lectures. It is important that we maximise the benefit from the visiting academics, but recognise it results in a large amount of information being imparted over one week, so despite incorporating both morning and afternoon rest breaks it is tiring for the students.

For the teaching staff, the timetable was organised such that Lorna, Amir and Anneze all had two free afternoons. On one of those afternoons, whilst Lorna was teaching, Amir and Anneze were taken to Salima by Dr James Mchenga, so that they could see Lake Malawi. Lorna would have her opportunity to visit the lake the following weekend during our journey back to Blantyre.

It was a great chance to have a break from the teaching:

Previous and ongoing policy work on The MalDent Project has focused very much on public health and the importance of prevention of oral and dental disease. This has included development and launch of the National Oral Health Policy, carrying out Malawi’s first National Child Oral Health Survey and hosting a workshop on child oral health at Mponela. Lorna has been closely involved with all of these initiatives and was, therefore, able to provide extensive Malawian context in her didactic teaching and small group discussion work on Dental Public Health.

The discussions in the small groups were very animated and resulted in some excellent suggestions:

This Malawian context was a significant advantage and recognised by the students, some of whom commented on it in their course feedback, for example:

“I was thinking the public health content will be limited to UK data, but I was surprised that the content was including “up to date” Malawi data”

“It was amazing in a way that it aligned with Malawian context and also easily applicable”

BDS 3 students

Another aspect of the whole week was the level of engagement of the students with the Flying Faculty team. This was evident not just during the presentations but also in the breaks between lectures.

“They always gave us time to ask questions, not only at the end of the presentation but also during the presentation. They have also given their contact details for more questions. Very approachable, friendly and interactive”

BDS 4 student

On the last day of the week, Amir and Anneze provided morning snacks for the BDS 4 students, which was a very generous gesture that was greatly appreciated by the class. This is an initiative we should incorporate into future Flying Faculty weeks to help the students maintain concentration during the intensive teaching sessions.

On the final afternoon, we all congregated together and the students from both years completed feedback forms.

There were also “thank you” speeches from the BDS 3 and BDS 4 Class Representatives as well as comments from the Flying Faculty team and some of the KUHeS staff. We then headed out into the sunshine for a group photograph.

It had been a very busy and intense week. The students had been provided with a large volume of information over a short time period, but their feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

“We are thankful for the Flying Faculty’s week. We have learnt from the best. We are looking forward to having you again very soon”

BDS 4 student

As a team we were delighted with the level of engagement of the students, which had made delivery of the teaching very rewarding. That evening we celebrated the very successful week with dinner in Vincent’s Restaurant at the Sunbird Mount Soche Hotel.

The next morning, I went early to Kamuzu International Airport with Amir and Anneze as they departed for their flight to Johannesburg en route to Cape Town.

Their outstanding teaching together with the dedication and commitment they had shown to the students was fantastic. We look forward to their further engagement with the BDS programme at KUHeS and to welcoming them once more to ‘The Warm Heart of Africa’.

Later that day, Peter Chimimba, Lorna and I would be heading South to Blantyre via Salima – the start of a week of contextualisation and meetings for Lorna as we move towards developing a Child Oral Health Improvement Plan for Malawi. You will need to wait for the next post to hear how that week unfolded.