Medical education in Uganda - A critique

Abstract

There is a growing concern about the decline in standards of the undergraduate medical education in Uganda. Our two established medical schools are having difficulty in achieving their educational objectives. Undergraduate teaching has become uneven in quality, variable in commitment and lacking in co-ordinated objectives. Consequently the medical students have become the losers. Today it is the medical students who are losing out but tomorrow it will be the patients who will lose out.

Currently a large proportion of young medical graduates have lack communication skills, have a poor grasp of clinical logic, are uncertain in their choice of diagnostic tests, make poor decisions in prescribing treatment and have a poor grasp of ethical principles. Even more alarming, is the significant number of our senior medical students and house officers who are deficient in basic clinical skills of taking a focused history and making a physical examination. If these matters are to be rectified, we need a fundamental rethink of the role of our medical schools in producing the doctors of tomorrow capable of handling the disease burden in our rural areas. This paper is aimed at examining the current state of our undergraduate medical education in the region with special emphasis on medical training in Uganda. An attempt to highlight the relevant remedial steps is made.