Use of WONCA global standards to evaluate family medicine postgraduate education for curriculum development and review in Nepal and Myanmar

Abstract

Family medicine is an integral part of primary care within health systems. Globally, training programmes exhibit a great degree of variability in content and skill acquisition. While this may in part reflect the needs of a given setting, there exists standard criteria that all family medicine programmes should consider core activities. WONCA has provided an open-access list of standards that their expert community considers essential for family medicine (GP) post-graduate training. Evaluation of developing or existing training programmes using these standards can provide insight into the degree of variability, gaps within programmes and equally as important, gaps within recommendations. In collaboration with the host institution, two family medicine programmes in Nepal and Myanmar were evaluated based on WONCA global standards. The results of the evaluation demonstrated that such a process can allow for critical review of curriculum in various stages of development and evaluation. The implications of reviewing training programmes according to WONCA standards can lead to enhanced training world-wide and standardisation of training for post-graduate family medicine.