Abigail Dreyer

Abigail Dreyer (Bachelor of Arts, Advanced Diploma in Adult Education and a Masters in Public Health) is a full-time lecturer in the Department of Family Medicine, Division of Rural Health at the University of Witwatersrand. She served as the Chairperson of the Faculty Committee for Community-Based Health Science Education (CoBHSE). She is joint faculty for the Sub-Saharan African FAIMER Regional Institute (SAFRI) which supports medical education. Abigail holds a Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) fellowship, a fellowship with the sub-Saharan FAIMER regional institute (SAFRI), and a Female Academic Leaders Fellowship (FALF). For the Southern African Association of Health Educationalists (SAAHE), she plays a leadership role for two Special Interest Groups, the Interprofessional Education (IPE) SIG, and the Education for Sustainable Healthcare (ESH) SIG. She is a reviewer for the African Journal of Health Professions Education and the Rural and Remote Health Journal. She has more than 25 years’ experience of working in rural and underserved communities in the Western Cape, Free State, Gauteng, North West, and Mpumalanga as well as Lesotho and Swaziland. Her teaching is centered on faculty development, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the faculty. She maintains and fosters learning opportunities in communities for students to apply their skills to contribute to community citizenship. Her research interests include curriculum design, and innovations in Medical and Health Professions Education, community-engaged teaching, collaborative practice, interprofessional teaching, and research that contributes to improving the quality of health care in rural and underserved areas. Her PhD explored the use of decentralised training platforms in the undergraduate training of medical students.