Abstract
Background: The Selective Programme (Selectives) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) is a three-year longitudinal, community-based programme within the undergraduate medical curriculum, which aims to develop primary health care (PHC) and public health competencies in students using the community-oriented primary care (COPC) approach. 
 
 Aim: The aim of this research was to evaluate the Selectives against the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) ‘core’ graduate competencies.
 
 Setting: This study was carried out among medical students concluding Selectives at UKZN in 2015. 
 
 Methods: A cohort of 183 students concluded Selectives in 2015, and thereafter 70 (38%) completed a routine online evaluation of the programme based on the core graduate competencies.
 
 Results: Students reported substantial improvements in PHC clinical knowledge, improved understanding of a population perspective on health, and having gained public health knowledge and skills. 
 
 Conclusion: Selectives is an effective way to use a decentralised PHC learning platform to enable medical students to address some of the HPCSA graduate competencies required for health care professionals and not necessarily covered by other medical disciplines.
 
 (Full text of the research articles are available online at www.medpharm.tandfonline.com/ojfp)
 
 S Afr Fam Pract 2017; DOI: 10.1080/20786190.2016.1272229
Highlights
South Africa faces a quadruple burden of disease and other critical health system challenges
Dealing with these issues requires healthcare professionals (HCPs) to be clinically competent transformational agents able to work in cooperation with other HCPs and stakeholders to address health system deficiencies and social determinants of health.[1,2]
In order to ensure appropriate training of HCPs the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) requires medical school curricula and learning to be aligned to ‘core’ graduate competencies (Figure 1), so that millennial graduates are skilled clinicians able to provide professional and ethical health care that is needed by the whole population.[3]
Summary
South Africa faces a quadruple burden of disease and other critical health system challenges Dealing with these issues requires healthcare professionals (HCPs) to be clinically competent transformational agents able to work in cooperation with other HCPs and stakeholders to address health system deficiencies and social determinants of health.[1,2] In order to ensure appropriate training of HCPs the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) requires medical school curricula and learning to be aligned to ‘core’ graduate competencies (Figure 1), so that millennial graduates are skilled clinicians able to provide professional and ethical health care that is needed by the whole population.[3].
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