Establishing Medical Schools in Limited Resource Settings

National competency frameworks for medical graduates: Is it time for the “SudanMeds”?

“…Moreover, those new medical schools are maldistributed across the country with the majority being located in the capital city of Khartoum while some are hosed in remote areas where the necessary infrastructure is almost non-existent [30,32]. One wonders about the justification of this massive increase in the number of medical schools in the absence of appropriate social and population studies and job market needs and, more importantly, the availability of enough clinical sites for training this huge and out-of-proportion number of medical students [6,8,36]. The unprecedented florid increase in the number of medical schools in Sudan that was once described as haphazard [32] will risk the whole phenomenon to be marked as a trade rather than natural professional development [34,37,38], bearing in mind that the establishment of a new medical school is a thoughtful and relatively long process that should involve careful planning and participation of all stakeholders [6,39,40].…”

“…Regrettably, calls for thoughtful and commensurate expansion in the number of medical schools and medical students was reported almost 40 years ago with a visionary report about the directions of medical education in Sudan [44]. Considering the high rate of migration of Sudanese medical graduates seeking work and training outside and what is known as the "brain drain" phenomenon, it should be noted that expansion in medical education would not suffice alone to solve the shortage of physicians in the country unless accompanied with strategies to retain them in the health workforce [6,36,45,46].…”

“…It has been shown that national frameworks can be integrated horizontally across all medical schools and other allied health sciences and also vertically to involve higher specialty training programs [6]. In fact, national competency frameworks were introduced first in the setting of postgraduate medical training before being later incorporated in basic medical education [23,29].…”

“…The trajectory of medical education has been marked in the last few decades with growing enthusiasm in competency-based education [1][2][3][4][5]. This paradigm came at the Sudan Journal of Medical Sciences Ahmad AbdulAzeem Abdullah forefront of interests of many medical schools worldwide driven by the increasing complexity and changing roles of physicians in this century [3,6]. The interest in CBME has spiked recently in response to the rising awareness and expectations of the community of what physicians should be able to do to meet their needs in addition to the increased concerns of patient safety in todays' practice of medicine [7][8][9].…”

“…The proposed competency framework would specify the competencies that should be mastered by all medical graduates in Sudan and consequently guide the process of identification of the important topics that should be covered in the curriculum. Decision on such topics should be tailored to encompass the pervasive health and environmental problems with intimate consideration of the social and cultural norms that are dominant in the country[6]. This is particularly essential considering the wide geographical area and the diverse ethnic and sociocultural backgrounds with which Sudan is endowed[30].…”