Author: Laura María Espinosa Estrada
Since this first fair, we are already thinking about the aspects to improve to continue having this space as a flagship within the faculty.
The importance of clinical work and the added value involved in managing one’s own projects and initiatives with business potential were highlighted.
Guided by the need to identify and highlight the entrepreneurial spirit of both students, graduates and teachers of the Medicine program, the Faculty of Health Sciences through the first Medical Entrepreneurship Fair, which was held yesterday in the corresponding block from 8 am to 12 noon, promoted more than 23 business proposals from already professionals and future doctors with the in order to merge and highlight not only their clinical knowledge, but also their ability to undertake and make medical practice a comprehensive vision.
Rodrigo Ocampo Mejía, medical director of the medicine program at the University of Quindío, pointed out: “When we do the self-evaluation processes for accreditation, we review a series of factors that the CNA, the Ministry of Education reviews to be able to do that and it turns out that For us, the profile of the graduate is for the doctor to be an entrepreneur. So to demonstrate to the peers we said “we want to go further”, so we planned a first space that was an entrepreneurship discussion led by the students themselves, about what entrepreneurship is and we approached the innovation office of the university, the one that gave us all the elements to approve ideas and therefore, projects. When we started working on interdisciplinarity with the innovation office, through the advisor delegated to us, we realized that we have a number of students with companies of different types, but very little known.”
The commitment to innovation, entrepreneurship as a skill and interdisciplinarity became a challenge and pillar to make this academic space a window not only academic but real that would involve them directly with the field they will soon have to face.
Lorena Rodríguez Nieto, nutritionist, teacher, and organizer of the fair, expressed: “With this mentality of learning and being entrepreneurs, we have transformed ourselves this semester into different actions so that students see themselves as entrepreneurs in medicine.”
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This was the appropriate space to make visible the diversity of ventures that exist within the university community, thus, within the fair, evidencing the potential of entrepreneurs and future doctors, the projects involved with art, music, different specialized services specific to the health area and those projects that allocate part of their income to support mothers who are heads of households, which demonstrates the breadth of entrepreneurial options that also exist in the field of health.
“There were around 80 attendees, likewise, the event had between 40 and 50 organizers, a group that formed an accreditation base and this year was strengthened, these are students for whom the call is put together at a general level and they on their initiative themselves decide to participate,” said Rodríguez Nieto.
The curatorship for this event obeyed the sense of being a medical venture, but understanding that the venture may or may not be its own, some public and private entities were given the opportunity to offer their services in this business showcase. “An example of this is that independent doctors participated selling their service,” said the nutritionist.
The impact sought with these commitments framed within the academy is that all students of the faculty feel that being a Uniquindian comprehensive doctor carries the seal of an entrepreneur.
“We strengthen these spaces by offering the Innovation Office. Right now, we are in alliance with them. This office manages entrepreneurship within its three lines, offering diplomas, advice and guidance from the moment the idea is born until it goes to market. We make students aware of the tools that the university provides through this office, but the idea is that each one takes ownership of their project. We also want to include certain topics in the academic program to further promote entrepreneurship among students. Now we promote entrepreneurial students, thanks to the fact that we have begun to explore and we have found many, so we can help them with this great initiative,” he concluded.
