Sensitizing Caribbean medical students to management issues

ABSTRACT

In the health sector, deficiency in management skills is a feature within all services - though less so in the public health sector. Over the last ten years, the University of the West Indies has developed and conducted a health management course for medical undergraduates aimed at sensitizing them to management as it relates to medicine and health care. The course is delivered during the penultimate year of the curriculum and thus far has a potential target audience of approximately 600 students. Didactic lectures have accounted for 83 percent of contact time with the remaining time utilized for debates, video presentations and student presentations. Five short case studies have been developed which have allowed a reduction in the "didactic diet" within more recent times. Students' reactions to the course were rated overall as "fair to good" for presentation, content and relevance; the response to case studies was "interesting, realistic and helpful in their understanding of subject matter". Some students felt that it was important and interesting course but that the time scheduled for lectures sometimes made attendance difficult; in any event their focus at this time was on clinical aspects of their training and they could not spare much time for this course. This experience in teaching management to medical students must be built on and strengthened so as to enhance the cognitive and attitudinal outcomes. Departments, like individual faculty members, sometimes have tubular vision which is to be admired in the pursuit of individual sciences(s), but in an undergraduate programme of medical education, parochial goals must give way to the objectives of the institution as a whole.(AU)