Medical Education
By joining with local and global academic institutions with the shared mission of rural health service delivery, we aim to transform facilities in Maryland County into clinical education hubs.
Dr. Joia Mukherjee, the Global Chief Medical Officer for Partners In Health, visited the multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) ward at the PIH-supported J.J. Dossen Hospital. During her visit, she assessed a patient while being observed by two resident doctors, Drs. Sieh and Cole. Dr. Mukherjee was accompanied by Dr. Maxo Luma, the Executive Director for Partners In Health Liberia, Dr. John Otuba, the TB/HIV Lead for PIH-L, and Dr. Bill Davies, the Medical Director of J.J. Dossen Hospital.
PIH Liberia partners with national and international academic institutions to provide social service training, supportive clinical mentorship and training, nursing education and graduate medical education to develop a health workforce that effectively responds to the needs of the population.
SOCIAL SERVICE TRAINING
Liberia is developing a national health worker bonding policy that will require a mandatory service period for all health workers trained in public institutions. Building of PIH’s global expertise in supporting MoHs in implementation and monitoring of service year programs, PIH in Liberia aims to establish Maryland County as a model site for social service training of physicians. This training will prepare new physicians for rural health service by providing clinical training and mentorship, rooted in the principles of social medicine, and by equipping them with the tools needed to deliver high-quality and equitable health care. 2.
NURSING EDUCATION
As Liberia rebuilds its health workforce, qualified nurses with the skills and capacity to provide care from community to primary care to hospital level are essential for quality of care. Since the start of PIH’s engagement to support the MoH to restore essential services post Ebola, support and training of nursing staff has been at the forefront of PIH’s efforts. PIH seeks to continue strengthening nursing education over the next five years, engaging local and global partnerships for nursing education at the pre-service and in-service levels, developing training programs in advanced nursing skills in key areas, including anesthetist training. By promoting continuous quality improvement measures and empowering nurses as skilled leaders, PIH will build a nursing center of excellence in Maryland County.
Health workforce development requires linking academic institutions with clinical service delivery and investing across the clinical education continuum that extends from pre-service to graduate medical education for physicians, and pre-service, in-service, and post graduate training for nursing professionals. PIH’s academic programs will leverage expertise through the Global Health Delivery Partnership, expanding on curricula PIH has developed over decades in partnership with Harvard University, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, University Hospital Mirebalais (Haiti) and the University of Global Health Equity (Rwanda). Through these continued partnerships, and by joining with local and global academic institutions with the shared mission of rural health service delivery, facilities in Maryland will be transformed into clinical education hubs.
GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION
The health workforce Program for Liberia outlines an ambitious plan for rebuilding the country’s health workforce with a focus on physician specialists, nurses, midwives, and health managers. Over the next five years, PIH will build infrastructure and systems for physician residency training programs, starting with the launch of a Family Medicine residency training program at JJ Dossen, with the goal of eventually establishing training programs across four core specialties: Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Surgery.
