There is an urgent need to re-examine and modernise the current approach to academic medicine from a fragmented, outdated, and static curriculum, to a more practical, hands-on medical education, experts have said.
The call was issued on Monday, March 24, during the official opening of the inaugural two-day Advancing Medical Education in Africa (MedEdAfrica) Conference underway in Kigali.
Organised by the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE), the conference brought together a diverse assembly of medical educators, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and students to deliberate on the need to revolutionise medical education and shape the future of healthcare across Africa.
With Africa facing a growing demand for skilled healthcare professionals, the Minister of Health, Dr Sabin Nsanzimana, maintained that medical schools need to integrate hospital settings as primary training sites for medical students.
"Why don't we teach from the hospital and make it a teaching site? That is the most recent development we agreed with the University of Rwanda. Let's not have academic doctors and clinical doctors. Let's have a doctor who can do academic work and clinical work."
He added; "Let's transform our hospitals into classrooms. At the end of the day, medical students should spend most of their time in hospitals."
Minister Nsanzimana argued that by allowing medical students to spend the majority of their time in clinical environments, the approach aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice while simultaneously benefiting patients through increased access to medical care.
"We should have the courage to embrace this," he reiterated, "We should have the courage to disrupt poor practices that were done before. Even if it is the way it is structured, we should disrupt it. If we don't, our children may also not. And our grandchildren will inherit it."
According to Nsanzimana, medical schools and their structures remain the same, decades after.
"The same size, same classrooms, same library, everything remains the same. Nothing has changed. Same thing. Surprisingly even the way people are teaching didn't change that much. But we can change more and even faster."
Minister Nsanzimana shared similar sentiments with Prof. Philip Cotton, the Vice Chancellor at UGHE, who stressed the need for transformation in medical education across the African continent.
Prof. Cotton used the vision of UGHE's co-founder, the late Dr Paul Farmer, to create a society of medical practitioners who drive transformation.
"There can be miracles when we believe and make a difference in the lives of people we are called to serve. That is the only reason that UGHE was formed. You people here are going to transform the world of medical education and beyond. I invite you to change this world through transformation, belief, and purpose."
According to Prof. Cotton, the field of medicine has traditionally focused on care for individual patients, with emphasis on disease treatment and less focus on disease deterrence.
However, he urged that while the approach has served patient care well, the most pressing issues facing health and healthcare today--including non-communicable diseases (NCDs), an ageing global population, and complex, systemic barriers to health equity--are not easily solved with an individual patient approach.
For Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, Acting Regional Director, WHO-Afro, the conference comes at a critical moment for Africa.
He said that Africa carries 25 per cent of the global disease burden but has only 3 per cent of the required health workers. By 2030 Africa will need an extra 6 million health workforce, he added.
"African problems are best solved by Africans and we can co-create sustainable solutions. The WHO stands with you, we are not just observers in this. Together we can produce the best medical practitioners that Africa deserves."
Mohamed Mustaf Ahmed, a medical doctor, and researcher from Somalia, reiterated the need for accessibility of advanced technological tools to propel medical education in Africa.
Ahmed pointed out that to meet the current needs of health and healthcare, medicine will require more health workers who are digitally competent.
"To modernise traditional medicine to be fit for today's purpose will require a re-examination of the current approach of academic medicine," he added.
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He maintained that the conference also serves as a platform for showcasing cutting-edge teaching approaches and curricular advancements from Rwanda and other African nations.
According to Dr Ines Peric, to meet the needs of the growing global population, training of surgical teams must be scaled up worldwide, particularly in low-resource settings where the need is greatest.
Participants also engaged in different workshops, panel discussions, and networking sessions designed to foster partnerships and collaborative initiatives.
"We have a relatively young presence on the African continent and we are looking to establish ourselves on the Rwandan market to equip medical students with critical skills," said Masahiro Wasa, General Manager of Japanese firm Kyoto Kagaki which prides itself in distributing simulators for medical education and phantoms for medical imaging.
The two-day conference is also expected to catalyse the formation of Africa's first continental consortium of Medical Schools.
