Dr Daksha Patel MD
Daksha is presently a clinical assistant Professor in International eye health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is an Ophthalmologist by training and has worked across a range of clinical settings in East Africa and has been involved with public health ophthalmology for over 20 years.
As a member of staff at the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) she led the training programmes for Public health for eye care from 2000-13, initially at University College London and then transferred the course to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). This globally unique course is focused on addressing avoidable blindness in low and middle income (LMI) settings at a population and health system level. Since 2013, Daksha has been involved in the development of an innovative approach in Open education for eye health, which has the primary focus of addressing equity in Global health education.
At present, Daksha is the e-learning director within the Eye Health Group at LSHTM, and is involved in developing open educational practice and massive open online courses (MOOCs). Since 2015, she has developed four MOOCs on the Future Learn platform (in Global Blindness - in English and French- and in Eliminating Trachoma and Diabetic Eye Disease) and two open study courses on the LSHTM Moodle platform (in ophthalmic epidemiology). Presently, She is working with a team of experts, on two more MOOCs in eye diseases. These developments in open online education are funded by the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust. The Open education in Eye Health has received the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence in 2019.
As a CODE fellow Daksha has been involved in educational research in open and distance teaching and learning and supporting the Research in Distance education conferences. She is also the exam board chair for the PGCertHE at University of London worldwide and also for the MSc in public health for eye care.
Daksha's interests are in:
- addressing the key issues of equity in education and identifying options in our digital age to innovate and establish an interconnected response to Global health education that is adaptable within a local context. (A Global-local balance).
- Supporting the development of an accreditation system for MOOCs and an opportunity to extend collaborative networks within academic systems.
- Identifying / developing tools that can provide a realistic understanding of transformative impact of education on individuals, their teams and within the context of the health systems they serve.
Qualifications
MMed (Ophth), MSc (CEH), FHEA