PBL at PAHS in Nepal

I just sat in on a PBL tutorial here at Patan in Nepal yesterday. What an experience. While there are many similarities, there are also so many differences.
They are starting a case on cervical cancer. There are those students who are great facilitators, those who are great at the board, those who say nothing and have side conversations, those who think they know everything already. Representative of all medical students I have seen!

There are 3 whiteboards in each tutorial room, the ground rules are posted and similar to our rules (minus the must speak English rule), this group has 9 students, they take turns at the board, they read the prompts of the case out loud.

They are supposed to speak in English but they slip into Nepali a lot! It makes it hard to understand and follow what is going on.
There are no questions on the sheets for the students to answer. I think this could be added and might help them understand what the level they need to work at is and where they need to go.
The tutor said absolutely not a single word for most of the tutorial. This is something that is so difficult to do but it allows the students to learn and work on their own.

I am so happy to be able to see PBL operating and running well in Nepal!  The faculty are fearful that there are many problems and that the students are not using it well, but these are problems I see all the time too!  It is nothing unique to them.  I think they are doing a fantastic job!