Feinberg School of Medicine is joining the ranks of approximately 20 U.S. medical schools contracted by the federal government to bring medical education in Africa into the 21st century.
The project, a $130 million initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, is a series of grants given to various African medical schools in countries including Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique to revamp their medical curriculum and training.
“It’s a very fundamental project that will help change the way they help educate future doctors on the continent,” said Robert Murphy, director of NU’s Center for Global Health.
NU will receive $2 million per year for five years for the medical school’s participation in the program. Feinberg submitted a proposal in May and was awarded the grant last month.
Shannon Galvin, associate director of the Center for Global Health, said it is an honor for the Global Health Center as well as for Feinberg.
“This is a very prestigious award,” Galvin said. “The other schools that have gotten it, they’re big players in global health.”
Murphy said the Global Health Center has been working in Nigeria through PEPFAR for seven years. The grant is a great way to continue their efforts, he said.
NU will partner with the Harvard School of Public Health to work with the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, a country with a dearth of trained medical personnel, said Adela Mizrachi, communications manager for the Center for Global Health.
“It’s really about working with the universities and getting their programs improved so that they meet the needs in Nigeria because there’s far too few doctors for too many people,” she said.
This is true for many countries in Africa, where the bulk of the AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics are, Murphy said.
The project focuses on updating medical curricula, maintaining faculty and professionals, and developing research skills in African universities, Galvin said.
“The goal of the grant is to improve medical education – not just for doctors but nurses, dentists, lab scientists, anyone involved in the medical field,” she said.
The initiative is the first of its kind, as many of these countries have not revamped their education systems since they became independent decades ago, Murphy said.
Galvin said the current medical education in most African countries is outdated and not as applicable as it should be.
“They want to update their old, didactic methods,” she said. “Instead of saying, ‘You need to learn this,’ it’s, ‘What do you need in order to do your job?'”
Modernizing the medical education system could be a huge step in improving the health care in Africa, but the process will take time and will not be easy, Murphy said.
The grant is a breakthrough for U.S. funding in Africa in general as well. In the past, the U.S. government gave grants exclusively to American institutions, which then subcontracted foreign universities. This will be the first multimillion dollar grant given directly to African institutions.
“They will be able to address the local needs that they identify themselves, and the U.S. institutions are their partners,” Galvin said. “It’s really exciting to be part of that paradigm shift.”
According to Murphy, this shift is also beneficial to the infrastructures of the various African medical schools.
“This is going to teach them how to manage the funds, how to organize the whole program and how to structure it,” he said. “This is a remarkable feat in itself.”
