Preservice Education

Some countries have only one psychiatrist, and as many as half of developing countries have fewer than five mental health researchers. The World Health Organization’s calculations indicate that in low- and middle-income countries more than 239,000 additional mental health workers are needed, but only 54.5% of all low-income countries have specific psychiatric education.

One approach to addressing these shortages is through eLearning.

Academic courses and degrees
There are many institutes and companies throughout the world that offer online degrees and certificates, but the education level, cost, and international recognition varies. Read more »

Recently, CapacityPlus announced the launch of the Global Advisory Board on Strengthening Medical, Nursing, and Public Health Schools in Developing Countries. The board—as part of our work to strengthen preservice education and training—will help to address management issues in health professional schools.

“The global health community needs to urgently support the strengthening of not only the curricula development of medical schools, schools of public health, and nursing schools, but even more so their management capacity and the ability of their deans and other senior leaders to play a prominent role in the health sector and HRH [human resources for health] reforms of their countries,” says Chairperson Dr. Ok Pannenborg. Read more »

At Uthong Hospital—a 150-bed community facility in Amphur-Uthong, Supanburi Province, Thailand—I had the opportunity to learn how the staff integrate both conventional medicine and Thai traditional therapies. Located about two hours away from Bangkok, the field trip was part of the busy week-long events at the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health. Read more »

“We don’t train health workers. We train dogs. We educate health workers,” said David Gordon, visiting professor at the World Federation for Medical Education, to participants at the World Health Organization (WHO)/ PEPFAR consultation meeting on the transformative scale-up of medical, nursing, and midwifery education.

Held in Geneva in December, this high-level consultation brought together global, country, and institutional leaders from both the health worker education and health sectors in order to develop an opinion base and engage stakeholders for cooperative success.

Transformative scale-up
While the guidelines on transformative scale-up are still being written, this new concept recognizes two paradigms. Read more »