Abstract
IntroductionZambia is facing a chronic shortage of health care workers. The paper aimed at understanding how the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) program facilitated strengthening and expanding of the national capacity and quality of medical education as well as processes for retaining faculty in Zambia.MethodsData generated through documentary review, key informant interviews and observations were analyzed using a thematic approach.ResultsThe MEPI program triggered the development of new postgraduate programs thereby increasing student enrollment. This was achieved by leveraging of existing and new partnerships with other universities and differentiating the old Master in Public Health into specialized curriculum. Furthermore, the MEPI program improved the capacity and quality of training by facilitating installation and integration of new technology such as the eGranary digital library, E-learning methods and clinical skills laboratory into the Schools. This technology enabled easy access to relevant data or information, quicker turn around of experiments and enhanced data recording, display and analysis features for experiments. The program also facilitated transforming of the academic environment into a more conducive work place through strengthening the Staff Development program and support towards research activities. These activities stimulated work motivation and interest in research by faculty. Meanwhile, these processes were inhibited by the inability to upload all courses on to Moodle as well as inadequate operating procedures and feedback mechanisms for the Moodle.ConclusionExpansion and improvement in training processes for health care workers requires targeted investment within medical institutions and strengthening local and international partnerships.
Highlights
Zambia is facing a chronic shortage of health care workers
We present the processes and systems for enhancing the capacity and quality of health care worker training and retention of faculty in Zambia which emerged following the implementation of the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) program
The findings have been organized around three broad themes namely: training more health care workers, improving the quality of medical training, and processes for retaining faculty
Summary
Zambia is facing a chronic shortage of health care workers. The paper aimed at understanding how the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) program facilitated strengthening and expanding of the national capacity and quality of medical education as well as processes for retaining faculty in Zambia. The MEPI program improved the capacity and quality of training by facilitating installation and integration of new technology such as the eGranary digital library, E-learning methods and clinical skills laboratory into the Schools This technology enabled easy access to relevant data or information, quicker turn around of experiments and enhanced data recording, display and analysis features for experiments. This crisis has been exacerbated by the stress brought about by the double burden of disease, (communicable and non communicable) and in particular health burdens of HIV infection, which have intensified health system demands on the already overstretched infrastructure [7,8,9] This crisis is as a result of limited numbers of graduating health professionals, "brain drain" of doctors to non-clinical positions and/or jobs outside of the country [10, 11], and reallocation of current staff to well-funded initiatives for specific diseases, including HIV [12]
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