Strengthening and expanding the capacity of health worker education in Zambia.

INTRODUCTION: 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. METHODS: Data generated through documentary review, key informant interviews and observations were analyzed using a thematic approach. RESULTS: The 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. CONCLUSION: Expansion and improvement in training processes for health care workers requires targeted investment within medical institutions and strengthening local and international partnerships.

Strengthening faculty recruitment for health professions training in basic sciences in Zambia.

Zambia is facing a crisis in its human resources for health, with deficits in the number and skill mix of health workers. The University of Zambia School of Medicine (UNZA SOM) was the only medical school in the country for decades, but recently it was joined by three new medical schools--two private and one public. In addition to expanding medical education, the government has also approved several allied health programs, including pharmacy, physiotherapy, biomedical sciences, and environmental health. This expansion has been constrained by insufficient numbers of faculty. Through a grant from the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI), UNZA SOM has been investing in ways to address faculty recruitment, training, and retention. The MEPI-funded strategy involves directly sponsoring a cohort of faculty at UNZA SOM during the five-year grant, as well as establishing more than a dozen new master's programs, with the goal that all sponsored faculty are locally trained and retained. Because the issue of limited basic science faculty plagues medical schools throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, this strategy of using seed funding to build sustainable local capacity to recruit, train, and retain faculty could be a model for the region.