Abstract:

Background:
Transplant Procurement Management and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Barcelona offer a Master in Donation and Transplantation since 2004. Until 2010, 3 Spanish, 3 English and 4 Italian editions were held. Since 2011 it has been in English with a blended modular structure including: Donation, Transplantation, Management, Training for Trainers and Tissue Banking. The aim is to analyse the number of students, profile and the scores to evaluate improving measures.

Methods:
Data are organized in 2 periods (2004-2010 & 2011-2018) and 3 group analysis: number of students, profile and scores. The variables for the profile are gender, nationality and background. For the scores, the first period evaluates the final grade and the second, the scores in each of the academic modules.

Results:
Number & profile: 96 and 183 participants were registered in the program in the first and second period respectively. The most common background was “medicine” in the first period (47.91%) and in the second (60.66%). According to the specialization of the MD, Transplantation was the most frequent (55.26%), followed by Donation (42.98%).
In the 2004-10 period, the nationalities according to the language were: 1 European for Italian edition, 14 from American countries in the Spanish edition, and 4 in the English edition, mostly from Asia (3). In the 2011-18 period, students were from 48 different countries, mostly European and American.

Scores:
In 2004-2010 students were qualified on an on-site and online course on Donation & Transplantation, an internship and a Dissertation. The Master’s final grade was Pass/Fail. 100% of participants passed.
In 2011-2018, students were evaluated through blended modules, as well as an internship and a Dissertation. Online training was reinforced through a theory and multi-activity course in each of the modules, as well as new designed face to face training programs according to a hands-on methodology. The dissertation was first organized with the only support of a tutor (2011-2017). In 2018 two specific online platforms were designed to facilitate the follow-up of the participants both in the dissertation and in the internships. Among all the modules, Donation has the lowest score (7.71/10) and Transplantation the highest (8.30/10).

Conclusion:
As the main characteristics of the master are the students' internationality and heterogeneity, the improving measures must focus on flexibility in the module selection and promoting online modality. There is a direct impact in the increasing of the scores when the program is designed according to the needs and background of the participants.

Keywords:

Master program, blended learning, donation, transplantation.