Abstract
BackgroundMakerere University College of Health Sciences (MakCHS) in Uganda is undergoing a major reform to become a more influential force in society. It is important that its medicine and nursing graduates are equipped to best address the priority health needs of the Ugandan population, as outlined in the government’s Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP). The assessment identifies critical gaps in the core competencies of the MakCHS medicine and nursing and ways to overcome them in order to achieve HSSP goals.MethodsDocuments from the Uganda Ministry of Health were reviewed, and medicine and nursing curricula were analyzed. Nineteen key informant interviews (KII) and seven focus group discussions (FGD) with stakeholders were conducted. The data were manually analyzed for emerging themes and sub-themes. The study team subsequently used the checklists to create matrices summarizing the findings from the KIIs, FGDs, and curricula analysis. Validation of findings was done by triangulating information from the different data collection methods.ResultsThe core competencies that medicine and nursing students are expected to achieve by the end of their education were outlined for both programs. The curricula are in the process of reform towards competency-based education, and on the surface, are well aligned with the strategic needs of the country. But implementation is inadequate, and can be changed:• Learning objectives need to be more applicable to achieving competencies.• Learning experiences need to be more relevant for competencies and setting in which students will work after graduation (i.e. not just clinical care in a tertiary care facility).• Student evaluation needs to be better designed for assessing these competencies.ConclusionMakCHS has made a significant attempt to produce relevant, competent nursing and medicine graduates to meet the community needs. Ways to make them more effective though deliberate efforts to apply a competency-based education are possible.
Highlights
Makerere University College of Health Sciences (MakCHS) in Uganda is undergoing a major reform to become a more influential force in society
The document review informed the development of focus group discussions (FGD) and key informant interviews (KII) guides and the curriculum analysis tools, all of which contributed to the comparison between the competencies currently included in the curricula and those which are needed to accomplish Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) goals and the implementation of the Uganda Minimum Health Care Package
Recent developments in the current medical and nursing curricula The medical and nursing curricula at MakCHS are each organized in three phases
Summary
Makerere University College of Health Sciences (MakCHS) in Uganda is undergoing a major reform to become a more influential force in society. An even smaller number of universities, Makerere being among them, are in the early phases of moving towards outcome-based or competency-based curricula, which focus on preparing students to enter the workforce armed with excellent clinical skills, and with the ability to think critically and to display good interpersonal skills. These early phases manifest themselves with adaptations of problem-based learning curricula to increasingly focus on student outcomes, early clinical exposure, and integrating competencies throughout the entire undergraduate coursework [7,10,13,14]. The emerging nature of this movement provides an immediate opportunity for medical and nursing education experts in Sub-Saharan African universities to document and evaluate the extent to which current programs define competencies and to support a further shift towards outcome-based education
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