Background: The MMed in Family Medicine is a professional Master’s qualification spanning 4 years of training. The outcomes were predetermined by national consensus. While these outcomes are measured in the form of a national exit examination, there has been no exploration of the experiences of registrars (residents) in this relatively new programme. To evaluate the experiences of registrars in one of the nine training programmes in South Africa and to identify areas for improvement.Methods: This study used purposive sampling to recruit registrar (n = 9) and supervisor (n = 8) participants into respective groups. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews and analysed thematically, and consensus was built using the nominal group technique.Results: Supervisors identified the strengths and weaknesses of the programme which will impact on further strategic planning. Data from registrar interviews yielded two themes: affirmation, referring to the positive social engagement and facilitation of professional identity formation; and frustrations, referring to structural aspects of the programme which hindered academic progress.Conclusion: Qualitative programme evaluation is a useful tool in understanding the learning environment. The student perspective helped to identify the unintended consequences of the programme. It was also shown that the nominal group consensus building technique worked well in a resource-constrained environment.
The series, “Mastering your Fellowship”, provides examples of the question format encountered in the written Final Part A of the FCFP (SA) examination. The series is aimed at helping family medicine registrars prepare for this examination. Model answers are available online.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.