Boston University and HENAR kick off medical education workshops
YEREVAN — From Oct. 7 to 10, over 150 Armenian doctors participated in the first of 20 medical education workshops, conducted by six master’s degree candidates in Health Professions Education (MHPE), a hybrid program offered by Boston University in collaboration with the HENAR Foundation. The program is designed to equip Armenian physicians, clinical educators and healthcare professionals with contemporary competencies in leadership, teaching, research and monitoring and evaluation.
The week-long Training-of-Trainer (ToT) workshops were conducted by six master’s degree candidates, in collaboration with Boston University (BU) instructors. The students are mid-career physicians in Yerevan seeking to advance medical education in Armenia. MHPE classes began in September 2025 — launching an intensive one-year, 32-credit hybrid program offered for the first time by Boston University. Lectures are delivered online three days a week by BU faculty.
Meanwhile, the master’s students will continue conducting ToT workshops every two weeks with 20 to 30 participants each from their respective institutions. The workshops aim to transform residency curricula, teaching tools and evaluation methods. BU faculty are scheduled to return to Armenia in January and June 2026 to lead two additional week-long ToT workshops. The program will be capped when the students travel to the U.S. in summer 2026 for six weeks of intensive training at clinics and health centers in the Boston area.
“We are officially launching the Training of Trainers course, which serves as a cornerstone of the master’s degree program in Health Professions Education,” said Dr. Arman Voskerchyan, co-founder of the HENAR Foundation. He highlighted the MHPE program as a milestone in the development of healthcare education in Armenia. “ Our goal has always been to be a driving force for change in the healthcare system.
“Many of us have been trying for years to marshal the resources of the Diaspora to make a significant, lasting contribution to the improvement of healthcare in Armenia,” said Dr. Aram Kaligian, director of the BU-Armenia Medical Partnership. He thanked the invaluable work of the partners who made this possible — the HENAR Foundation, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, Yerevan State Medical University and the Armenian National Institute of Health — for their collaboration in the program. He also thanked “the intelligent, deeply-committed master’s students, and all ToT participants, for joining the workshops to help improve medical residency education and healthcare in Armenia.”
Dr. Henry Louis, HENAR project manager of the MHPE program, opened the sessions with an introduction to instructional design and its application in redesigning medical curricula. Participants then broke into groups of 20 to 30 to work with master’s students and BU faculty to develop measurable goals and learning objectives for their respective medical specialties. The focus is on demonstrating clinical competency in hands-on patient care rather than testing only theoretical knowledge of medicine.
Developed by Dr. Jeff Markuns, a family physician at Boston University’s Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine (BUCASOM) and director of the MHPE program, the curriculum is designed to be practicum-based rather than thesis-based. As a result, by the end of the year, the ToT participants will have helped redesign their own medical curricula, developed clinical teaching tools, created monitoring and evaluation methods and trained their respective departments in their use.
“I firmly believe in the need for change in medical education methodology and in promoting more effective, learner-centered approaches to motivate the next generation of medical professionals,” said MPHE student Dr. Lilit Marutyan, a pediatrician and chief medical officer of Wigmore Family Health. “In the short term, I hope to apply the knowledge I’ve gained to improve the training programs in our pediatric department. In the long term, I aim to use this experience to help launch a new training program for family medicine residents that will strengthen primary care in Armenia.”
“I joined the program because I wanted to become part of a global movement to transform postgraduate medical education in my country,” said MHPE candidate Hrachuhi Ghazaryan, chief medical officer at Wigmore Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
“Early in my career, and through my exposure to residency models across the developed world, I realized how unprepared our residents often are, despite being strong students at home. This significant ‘knowledge-do’ gap revealed the systemic shortcomings of our training model and inspired me to become someone who could help change that. The traditional ordinatura model, which has shaped postgraduate training in Armenia for decades, no longer meets the needs of our evolving healthcare system. Structured reform is only possible if faculty are empowered to lead it — and I believe this program equips us with the tools to do exactly that.”
The Boston University-Armenia Medical Partnership (BU-AMP) is a multidisciplinary program to coordinate collaboration for the improvement of healthcare in Armenia between the Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine at Boston University and health policy and healthcare entities in Armenia. For more information, please visit https://www.bumc.bu.edu/armenia/
Founded in 2021 by Noubar and Anna Afeyan, Ruben Vardanyan and Arman Voskerchyan, the HENAR Foundation aims to contribute to the transformation of Armenia’s healthcare ecosystem. By building and empowering a network of partners, HENAR works to deliver better value, better care and ultimately better health for current and future generations of Armenians. With support from AIFA (Afeyan Initiatives for Armenia), HENAR is leading efforts to strengthen Armenia’s primary care system, with a strong focus on talent development and digital innovation. For more information, please visit https://henar.am
