Rising to the challenge: Training the next generation of clinician scientists for South Africa

Kramer, Beverley; Veriava, Yosuf; Pettifor, John M.

doi:10.7196/ajhpe.671

Cited by 6 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…The Wits Faculty of Health Sciences initiated a programme to train clinician scientists in 2011 [30]. This programme, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, is relatively small (four Fellows per annum are trained due to financial constraints).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We have however attempted to evaluate certain aspects of these initiatives [see e.g. 27–30]. We acknowledge that there are other programmes and interventions in the WITS FHS, such as the CARTA programme, the input of the Human Research Ethic Committee (Medical), the administration from the Postgraduate Office, and individual research endeavours and collaborations, which would also have contributed substantially to these outcomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Closing the barrier between disease and health outcomes in Africa through research and capacity development

Kramer

Libhaber

2018

Global Health Action

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Background: While the burden of disease in Africa is high, health research emanating from the continent is low. Building human capacity and research infrastructure to close the gap between research and disease is thus of great imporatance. Objective: In order to improve research outputs and postgraduate training in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, the Health Sciences Research Office put in place a series of strategic initiatives over time. Methods: A range of strategic activities, for both postgraduate students and academic staff, were developed in parallel and sequentially over a period of approximately nine years (2008–2016). The latter years were a time of consolidation of the programmes. Outcomes of these activities were ‘measured’ by increases in publications, decreases in time to graduation and enrichment of the research environment. Results: A doubling of research publications and an increase in citations occurred over the period under review. In addition, there was a decrease in the time postgraduate students took to graduate. Conclusions: A varied, but structured research management plan may be of value in African and other developing health sciences institutions to enable the increase in research outputs and capacity development, desperately needed to close the barrier between disease and health.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Closing the barrier between disease and health outcomes in Africa through research and capacity development

Kramer

Libhaber

2018

Global Health Action

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“…This bottleneck that start-up dentist-scientists experience in technologically advanced societies would affect young and aspiring dentistscientists even more in Africa. In the sub-Saharan African region, there is lack of clinically trained dentalresearch scientists and minimal or no support for those existing [ 19 ]. To tackle the present precarious healthcare burdens appropriately, Africa need well-trained dentistscientists workforce to train future dental researcher and to lead research endeavours across the continent, and further afield.…”

Section: The Dentist-scientist Workforce: Status Quo In Africa Versusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A few universities in South Africa have developed initiatives that would empower clinicians to pursue a physician-scientist career pathway. For example, the University of Witwatersrand-Carnegie PhD Programme provides 2-year funding for clinicians with MMed (master of medicine) or MChD (Medicinae ac Chirurgiae Doctoranda) to pursue a PhD [ 19 ]. Even though this program has enrolled up to 16 fellows, its sustainability is being threatened by the availability of local funders.…”

Section: Improving the Physician-scientist Workforce In Africa: Southmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Translational research is highly important to international health policies, development initiatives, and research funding [ 18 ]; and African governments need to create an enabling environment for translational research among its dental health care providers. A decline in medical/clinical research output and capacity has been found in Africa as a result of low counts of clinician-scientists [ 19 ]. Although the support of the pure scientist is needed to tackle dental research problems that emanate from clinical observation, dental practitioners should play a more important role in addressing these problems [ 20 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The dentist-scientist career pathway in Africa: opportunities and obstacles

Adeola¹,

Adefuye²,

Soyele³

et al. 2018

Korean J Med Educ

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The future of evidence-based dentistry in developing Africa heavily depends on a sustainable establishment of a vibrant dentist-scientist workforce. A dentist scientist is saddled with the responsibility of carrying out robust cutting edge research projects that are inspired by clinical experience. Currently, there are no pipelines in place to systematically train such dentists, neither are there programs in place to allow trained African dentists choose such a career pathway. A dentist-scientist is a person who studied oral, dental, maxillofacial (or craniofacial) diseases, prevention, and population sciences (obtaining a medical degrees such as bachelor of dental surgery [BDS] or BChD) alone; or in combination with other advanced degrees such as doctor of dental surgery (DDS)/doctor of philosophy (PhD) or BDS/PhD. This situation has resulted in overdependence of African clinical practice on research findings from technologically advanced Western countries and a decline in clinical research capacity building. The career path of a dentist-scientist should involve research along the spectrum of basic biomedical sciences, translational, clinical and public health sciences. There are several factors responsible for the ultra-low count of dentist-scientist in the heterogeneous African communities such as: poor biomedical research infrastructure; lack of funding; absence of structured dentist scientist career pathways; lack of personnel, inter alia. Hence, this review hopes to discuss the opportunities of setting up a dentist-scientist training pathway in Africa (as obtains in most developed world settings), identify opportunities and prospects of developing an African dentist-scientist workforce, and finally discuss the challenges involved.

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The physician-scientists: rare species in Africa

Adefuye¹,

Adeola²,

Bezuidenhout³

2018

Pan Afr Med J

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There is paucity of physician-scientists in Africa, resulting in overt dependence of clinical practice on research findings from advanced “first world” countries. Physician-scientists include individuals with a medical degree alone or combined with other advanced degrees (e.g. MD/MBChB and PhD) with a career path in biomedical/ translational and patient-oriented/evaluative science research. The paucity of clinically trained research scientists in Africa could result in dire consequences as exemplified in the recent Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa, where shortage of skilled clinical scientists, played a major role in disease progression and mortality. Here we contextualise the role of physician-scientist in health care management, highlight factors limiting the training of physician-scientist in Africa and proffer implementable recommendations to address these factors.

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Rising to the challenge: Training the next generation of clinician scientists for South Africa

Cited by 6 publications

References 5 publications

Closing the barrier between disease and health outcomes in Africa through research and capacity development

Closing the barrier between disease and health outcomes in Africa through research and capacity development

The dentist-scientist career pathway in Africa: opportunities and obstacles

The physician-scientists: rare species in Africa

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