The Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal is upping its game and will be tackling the problem of under-staffing at rural hospitals and clinics in the province, Professor Richard Hift, dean of the school of clinical medicine at the university said in a Sunday Tribune report that the gross inequities between city a rural hospitals would soon be a distant memory. Hift said from this year, medical students would spend between 30% and 40% of their training time in the hospitals that need them most. He said: "We are going to be training doctors who are fit for purpose." Hift said that the strategy was part of a radically altered landscape at the medical school. "We are thinking big and asking: 'What can we do to create better doctors and better health care?'"
Hift said another huge change in policy at the medical school meant that posts would no longer be filled "by people who do not quite fit the profile of the candidate we are seeking. Instead, those posts will remain open until suitably trained applicants come up through the ranks."
In line with its new ethos, the dean explained, the medical school had adopted a model pioneered by the Canadian Royal College of Medicine. "They coined the 'seven competencies' to describe the knowledge, skills and abilities specialist physicians need to achieve the best possible patient outcomes," he explained. "They are: medical expert; communicator; collaborator; manager; health advocate, scholar; and professional."
"We are training doctors who will be much more than bio-mechanical technicians. In the past, medical schools concentrated their efforts 95% on technical competency, and simply assumed the rest would follow. The truth is, it often does not. Most medical schools still produce graduates that fall far below these competencies."
Hift said a long term aim was to establish training centres in rural hospitals, which would help addressing the pressing need for more medical professionals. Around 8 000 applications are received for just 240 places in the course for first-year medicine at the university.
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