Pre-Service Education

The purpose of this article was to analyze and compare the graduates of an urban- and a rural-located university in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where there is major maldistribution of physicians. While 70% of Congolese live in rural areas, relatively few doctors practice there. The results of the research for this article support the policy of establishing medical schools in rural areas, and also provide indications of approaches likely to increase the number and expertise of rural-located physicians. [adapted from abstract]

The last two decades has seen an explosion of institutions involved in the training of health personnel. This is possibly because of the huge demand of human resources of health (HRH) not only in Nepal, but worldwide. Various grades of HRH are going out of the country and seeking their livelihood elsewhere. [from abstract]

This report discusses attrition rates in diagnostic and therapeutic radiography degree courses, and includes recommendations on how these rates could be reduced. [from introduction]

It is well-recognised that medical students whose training exposure is largely limited to tertiary-level training hospitals may be inappropriately equipped to deal with the most relevant health issues affecting rural communities. This article evaluated the perceived educational value of a 2 week clinical rotation undertaken by senior undergraduate medical students at rural district hospitals and health care centers in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. [from abstract}

The preclinical years of undergraduate medical education provide educational content in a structured learning environment whereas clerkships provide clinical training in a more experiential manner. Although early clinical skills training is emphasized in many medical schools, students still feel unprepared and anxious about starting their clerkships. This study identifies the skills medical students perceive as essential and those skill areas students are most anxious about prior to starting clerkship rotations. [from abstract]

We reviewed published literature that outlines the principles of quality assurance in higher education from various institutions worldwide. Using this information, we designed a handbook that outlines the quality assurance principles in a simple and practical way. This was intended to enable institutions, even in developing countries, to adapt these principles in accordance with their local resource capacity. We subsequently pilot-tested this handbook at one of the sites in Ghana. [from abstract]

After a curriculum review, Makerere University’s longstanding traditional curriculum was converted to a problem based learning curriculum with a focus on Community Based Education and Service (COBES). As a component of COBES, radiography, medical, nursing, dentistry and pharmacy students are sent to community health facilities where they are expected to participate in community services and other primary healthcare activities.

There is increasing consensus that training programmes should focus on know-how instead of know-all. IntraHealth International’s Learning for performance: a guide and toolkit for health worker training and education programs offers a step-by-step, customizable approach designed to develop the right skills linked to job responsibilities. Using Learning for Performance yields more efficient training that focuses on what is essential for health workers to do their jobs and on effective learning methods.

Many countries are introducing, expanding, or undertaking major reform of pharmacy education. Such developments must be accompanied by robust systems to assure the quality of the educational structures, processes and outcomes; the latter primarily being graduates who are competent and capable of performing safely and effectively in their practice setting and contributing to the delivery of healthcare. [from author]

An updated and expanded version of the FIP Global Framework for Quality Assurance of Pharmacy Education Version 1 was published in 2015.

Rural nurses describe the nature of their practice as being embedded in working as a team where belonging is central to the success of the team and the individual nurse. As a result they form close professional and personal ties. The challenge for nursing students is to develop a sense of belonging to the rural hospital team so that preceptorship is successful. The objective of this article is to describe the cultural theme of a sense of belonging that nursing students develop during a rural hospital preceptorship. [adapted from abstract]

Community-based education (CBE) was developed thirty years ago in response to the maldistribution of physicians and subsequent inequity of health care services across geographical areas in developed and developing countries. Several medical schools in Nigeria report adopting CBE. This study seeks to identify and describe the CBE programs in accredited Nigerian medical schools and to report students’ assessments of the knowledge and skills gained during their community-based educational experience. [from abstract]

To date, traditional biomedical hospital-centered models of medical education have not produced physicians in quantities or with the competencies and commitment needed to meet health needs in poor communities worldwide. The Global Health Education Consortium conducted an initial assessment of selected medical education programs/schools established specifically to meet these needs.

Leaders of the University of Belize’s Faculty of Nursing and Allied Health had a vision. Their country has the third highest HIV prevalence in the region, after Haiti and Guyana, yet it lacked an effective system for training providers in counseling and testing. As faculty members, they dreamed of establishing a national training center that would provide the latest resources and trainings for both students and providers. [from author]

The AVICENNA Directories is a publicly accessible database of schools, colleges, and universities for education of academic professions in health. The database includes medical schools, schools of pharmacy, schools of public health and educational institutions of other academic health professions. For medical educational institutions, this database replaces the World Directory of Medical Schools published by WHO since 1953. [adapted from publisher]

In 2001 the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Gezira (FMUG) introduced the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) strategy into its medical curriculum. The emphasis was on pre-service training that addresses standard case management and the IMCI community component. This report presents the experience of FMUG in integrating such a training package into the medical curriculum. It explains the rationale for introducing the IMCI community component and the guiding principles for doing so.

The aim of this paper is to review the share of the medical sector in the higher education enhancement project fund (HEEPF), its outcomes, sustainability, and to provide recommendations for keeping the momentum of reform pursuit in the future. [from abstract]

This database contains listings for medical schools all over the world. Users can search by region or by country to access details about the schools available.

Initial nursing or midwifery education prepares professionals for the workforce thus there is a need for programmes to be of a high quality. The development of global standards for initial nursing and midwifery education identifies the essential, critical components of education. [from author]

This note discusses challenges and options in scaling up the production of skilled health workers and strengthening the health professions educational capacity of the countries in crisis, particularly in Africa. [from introduction]

Clinical skills and the ability to perform procedures is a vital part of general medicine. Teaching these skills to aspiring doctors is a complex task and it starts with a good theoretical preparation and some practical experience at university. On graduating from university, each doctor is faced with the task of transforming theoretical knowledge into the practical, procedural skills of a competent professional. This study aims to assess the perceptions of intern doctors working in regional hospitals in the Western Cape of their skills training both at undergraduate level and during the intern year.

This article describes the experience of Guatemalan students at Cuba’s Latin American Medical School. The students’ education emphasizes health problems and diseases characterizing the epidemiological situation in their home country and in-depth courses in disaster management, as well as clinical experience in Guatemala. [adapted from author]

The Institute of Medicine’s Academy of Science has recommended that medical schools incorporate information on CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) into required medical school curricula so that graduates will be able to competently advise their patients in the use of CAM. The report states a need to study models of systems that integrate CAM and allopathic medicine. The authors present Cuba’s health care system as one such model and describe how CAM (or natural and traditional medicine) is integrated into all levels of clinical care and medical education in Cuba. The authors conclude that there is much to learn from the Cuban experience to inform U.S.

This presentation was given at the First Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala. It discusses the key features of the Problem-Based Learning/Community-Based Education and Service innovations to the health curricula at Makerere University, why they implemented these improvements and the benefits they have seen from the program.

This presentation was given at the First Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala. It discusses training Clinical Officers, a cadre of mid-level health professionals, as a method of filling the health worker gap in a post-conflict area.

The aim of this study was to establish whether a web-based package on the diagnosis of respiratory disease would be as effective and as acceptable to final year medical students as tutor-led methods of teaching the same material. [from abstract]

The overall objective of community-based medical education (CBME) is to produce highly qualified doctors in sufficient numbers to meet the health needs of the nation at community and hospital levels. In the current program, medical students undertake an eight-week residential posting in their final year. The objective of this study was to assess the communities’ awareness, perception and participation in the CBME program. [adapted from introduction]

The purpose of this electronic resource is to make available information about the extent and nature of international opportunities for medical students, residents, and faculty. It provides information about which schools offer programs, how these are funded, and in which geographical regions they occur. In many cases, individual schools provide further information about their programs on their own websites. [publisher’s description]

The International Medical Education Directory (IMED) provides an accurate and up-to-date resource of information about international medical schools that are recognized by the appropriate government agency in the countries where the medical schools are located. The agency responsible for this recognition in most countries is the Ministry of Health. Medical schools that are recognized by the appropriate agencies in their respective countries are listed in the International Medical Education Directory. [publisher’s description]

Health workers attending overseas universities may be less likely to return home. One response is to improve course provision and professional updating opportunities in-country. Leeds Metropolitan University, with funding from the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission under their distance learning initiative, runs a tailor-made MSc Public Health (Environmental Health and Health Promotion) in Zambia, for nurse tutors, clinical officers and environmental health workers. Using locally relevant curricula, with community-based, student centred, problem-solving approaches, retention may be improved. This paper will discuss how the course is delivered in Zambia, how the partnership developed such as to enable effective delivery of the course, and how sustainable learning can be achieved in a developing country in partnership with a UK University. [from abstract]

This document introduces a competency-based curriculum for nurses and midwives in Rwanda developed by the Capacity Project.