A Review of Outcome of Postgraduate Medical Training in Zambia

Abstract

The University of Zambia School of Medicine was opened in 1966. Since inception, over 1200 undergraduate students have graduated with Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. The postgraduate Master of Medicine (M.Med)programme was started in 19822 with the intention of providing district specialists in the rural and semi urban communities of Zambia. Additional hope was to stem the brain drain to other countries. This is a study to describe the deployment of graduates of the M.Med training programs at the University of Zambia School Of Medicine in relation to the objectives defined by the University of Zambia senate in 1981. It was found that the School of Medicine has produced 118 Master of Medicine graduates in 5 clinical programs over a period of 22 years. The average graduation rate is 5 students per annum. The largest specialist group has been in General surgery with 34 (29% ) of all graduates. The ratio of men to women was 3 to 1. The ratio of Zambian to Non Zambian ratio was 10:1. Of all students who have graduated over this period 13 (11%) have gone abroad and 7(6%) have died., Eighty-eight (75%) of the graduates are working along the line of rail in the 5 most urbanized towns in the country. Twenty-five ( 21%) are doing non clinical jobs which involve health programs administration and 12 (10%) are working in private practice. We concluded that external migration is not a major problem and, overall, the creation of a local postgraduate training program has reduced brain drain. The key challenge is internal brain drain.