Education and Training

Profiling Alumni of a Brazilian Public Dental School

Follow-up studies of former students are an efficient way to organize the entire process of professional training and curriculum evaluation. The aim of this study was to identify professional profile subgroups based on job-related variables in a sample of former students of a Brazilian public dental school. [from abstract]

Field Epidemiology Training Programmes in Africa: Where Are the Graduates?

There is currently limited published evidence of health-related training programmes in Africa that have produced graduates, who remain and work in their countries after graduation. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of graduates of field epidemiology training programmes in Africa stay on to work in their home countries, many as valuable resources to overstretched health systems. [from abstract]

Retraining Due to Illness and Its Implications in Nursing Mangement

The objective of this qualitative study was to understand how nursing professionals coped with job retraining in a public hospital after an illness. [adapted from abstract]

Network-Based Social Capital and Capacity-Building Programs: an Example from Ethiopia

This study assessed the social networks in a Master of Hospital and Healthcare Administration program. The authors’ conclusions suggest that intentional social network development may be an important opportunity for capacity-building programs as healthcare systems improve their ability to manage resources and tackle emerging problems. [adapted from introduction]

Use of RDTs to Improve Malaria Diagnosis and Fever Case Management at Primary Health Care Facilities in Uganda

This study evaluated the effect of malaria rapid diagnostic tests on health workers anti-malarial drug prescriptions among outpatients at low level health care facilities within different malaria epidemiological settings in Uganda. [from abstract]

Effectiveness of a Clinically Relevant Educational Program for Improving Medical Communication and Clinical Skills of International Medical Graduates

The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of a clinically relevant educational program to enhance the language proficiency and professionalism of international medical graduates in a Canadian context. [adapted from introduction]

Planning Training Seminars in Palliative Care: a Cross-Sectional Suvey on the Preferences of General Practioners and Nurses in Austria

Against the background of the development of palliative care in Austria the authors undertook this survey to identify the preferences of the general pracitioners’ and nurses’ regarding the specific design of training seminars in palliative care. We wanted to gain a better insight into which educational topics, timeframe, location and group designs are likely to attract a majority of different professional groups. [from author]

Evidence-Based Choices of Physicians: a Comparative Analysis of Physicians Participating in Internet CME and Non-Participants

This study is a continuation of an earlier report that found online continuing medical education (CME) to be highly effective in making evidence-based decisions. [from abstract]

Medical Education and Training in Nepal: SWOT Analysis

The goal of this article was to analyse the impact of the medical colleges that have been set up within the last two decades by production of doctors and the effect on the health of the people. [from abstract]

Transfer of Learning to the Nursing Clinical Practice Setting

The aim of this project was to identify if there is a link between what nursing students learn in simulated clinical laboratory sessions and what they experience during their clinical placements. [from abstract]

Competency-to-Curriculum Toolkit

This toolkit has been developed to facilitate the development of a public health workforce competent to meet its assigned mission. One part of that process is the use of competency-based curricula in public health training or education and how to determine the right activities for moving from a competency set to developing a curriculum. [adapted from author]

Pilot Study Evaluating the Effects of an Intervention to Enhance Culturally Appropriate Hypertension Education among Healthcare Providers in a Primary Care Setting

This pilot study evaluates how an intervention to improve hypertension care for ethnic minority patients of African descent in the Netherlands affected the attitudes and perceived competence of hypertension care providers with regard to culturally appropriate care. [adapted from abstract]

How Can Medical Schools Contribute to the Education, Recruitment and Retention of Rural Physicians in Their Region?

Developing a sufficient and sustainable rural physician workforce requires commitment and cooperation from communities, governments and medical schools. The author argues that medical education can play an important role in the recruitment and retention of rural physicians. [adapted from author]

Cuba Answers the Call for Doctors

This article outlines the Latin American Medical School program model which trains young people from developing countries and sends them home as doctors with a pledge to practise in underserved areas. [adapted from author]

National Interprofessional Competency Framework

This document describes an approach to developing competencies that can guide interprofessional education and collaborative practice for all professions in a variety of contexts and is the first attempt to develop a Canadian model of interprofessional competencies that is applicable to all health professions. [from author]

Pharmacy Schools: Seven African Countries Share Solutions

Heads of pharmacy schools in Africa, as with all global regions, are facing educational challenges to meet local medicines needs, ranging from the physical infrastructure and laboratory teaching equipment to the world-wide shortage in academic capacity to fill teaching positions. Seven heads of pharmacy schools in Africa met recently to discuss how to tackle this situation in order to provide solutions from which the global educational infrastructure can learn. [from author]

Re-Inventing Health Care Training in the Developing World: the Case for Satellite Applications in Rural Environments

Information and communication technology can play a vital role in training healthcare professionals, across the board - in nursing schools, medical schools, urban settings, and even in rural areas where it is often needed the most, in remote hospitals, health centers and dispensaries that are under-staffed and where the addressable population is scattered. [from author]

Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice

At a time when the world is facing a shortage of health workers, policymakers are looking for innovative strategies that can help them develop policy and programmes to bolster the global health workforce. This document highlights the current status of interprofessional collaboration around the world, identifies the mechanisms that shape successful collaborative teamwork and outlines a series of action items that policymakers can apply within their local health system.

Computer-Assisted Resilience Training to Prepare Healthcare Workers for Pandemic Influenza: a Randomized Trial of the Optimal Dose of Training

Working in a hospital during an extraordinary infectious disease outbreak can cause significant stress and contribute to healthcare workers choosing to reduce patient contact. Psychological training of healthcare workers prior to an influenza pandemic may reduce stress-related absenteeism, however, established training methods that change behavior and attitudes are too resource-intensive for widespread use.

Building Capacity in Health Facility Management: Guiding Principles for Skills Transfer in Liberia

This article describes a health management delivery program in which north and south institutions collaborated to integrate classroom and field-based training in health management and to transfer the capacity for sustaining management development in Liberia. [adapted from abstract]

Course of Specialization in Public Health in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 1926 to 2006: Lessons and Challenges

In this article we analyse Brazil’s 80 year old public health course via its history, disciplines, organization and characteristics of the student body in order to gain an insight into the development of public health in Brazil and to highlight the progress of education for professionals in this field. [adapted from author]

Wrong Schools or Wrong Students? The Potential Role of Medical Education in Regional Imbalances of the Health Workforce in the United Republic of Tanzania

This paper reviews available research evidence that links medical students’ characteristics with human resource imbalances and the contribution of medical schools in perpetuating an inequitable distribution of the health workforce. [from abstract]

Evaluation Study on the Relevance and Effectiveness of Training Activities in Northern Uganda

This study focused on a trained health workforce in Northern Uganda. The retention of specifically-trained staff 12-15 months after attending training was examined, as was the relevance and usefulness of the training as perceived by the health workers. [from abstract]

Report on the WHO/PEPFAR Planning Meeting on Scaling Up Nursing and Medical Education

The function of this meeting was to gather information on medical and nursing education, including learning from countries and institutions where innovative solutions are already being tested and implemented. The information, summarized in this meeting report, will inform the the development of evidence-based policy guidance that will serve to support countries in their efforts to scale up medical and nursing education. [adapted from author]

Developing Counseling skills through Pre-Recorded Videos and Role Play: a Pre- and Post-Intervention Study in a Pakistani Medical School

Interactive methods like role play, recorded video scenarios and objective structured clinical exam are being regularly used to teach and assess communication skills of medical students in the western world. In developing countries however, they are still in the preliminary phases of execution in most institutes. Our study was conducted in a naive under resourced setup to assess the impact of such teaching methodologies on the counseling skills of medical students. [from abstract]

Comparative Evaluation of the Effect of Internet-Based CME Delivery Format on Satisfaction, Knowledge and Confidence

The purpose of this study was to conduct a comparative evaluation of two internet-based continuing medical education delivery formats and the effect on satisfaction, knowledge and confidence outcomes. [from abstract]

Effect of a Peer-Educational Intervention on Provider Knowledge and Reported Performance in Family Planning Services: a Cluster Randomized Trial

This study evaluated the effect of an educational program including peer discussions on the providers’ knowledge and reported performance in family planning services. [from abstract]

Internet-Based Medical Education: a Realist Review of What Works, for Whom and in What Circumstances

This article aims to produce theory driven criteria to guide the development and evaluation of internet-based medical courses. [from abstract]

Implementation of the Learning for Performance Approach at the Gao Nursing School in Mali: Final Report

This report documents the efficiency of the Learning for Performance approach in the implementation of new pre-service reproductive health/family planning and child health training modules aimed at local health technicians working in Northern Mali. [adapted from introduction]