Retaining and securing medical specialists for Africa is a necessity, not a luxury, for quality integrated public healthcare, say experts who warn of coming crises.
There’s urgency for specialists to act. Buch added: “The agenda of this gathering that represents nine Colleges of Medicine in South Africa , West Africa and East Africa, is a first of its kind in many ways because we recognise that as specialists we are at a moment where we have the responsibility to drive an agenda about the unique and essential contribution of specialists to healthcare and the threats to our healthcare systems if we don’t make our voices heard.
Representatives at the conference also homed in on the wellness, support and leadership development of doctors. It’s an overlooked area, said Professor Suvira Ramlall, the CMSA president at the College of Psychiatrists, in her presentation. She added that there is terrible irony that doctors are often the worst patients, neglecting their own mental health needs.
Speakers said that many doctors, as a result, start their journey to specialisation with unseen or hidden burdens of mental health issues. There are pressures to succeed in advancing their careers while often working for low pay and in appalling conditions. Not being able to help their patients in the way they are trained to do also amounted to moral injury, burnout and ultimately exiting the public healthcare system.
Other presentations highlighted the lingering impact on doctors who bore direct witness to the scale of death and severe illness from the Covid-19 pandemic. Data presented also showed a growing reality that many doctors and health workers are dependent on alcohol and drugs to cope.The third key conference theme focused on improving and consolidating examination and assessment standards for specialists. It’s become crucial to improve public trust of specialists trained on the continent.
“We have been working towards workplace-based assessment and a programme of entrustable professional activities that every specialist knows their discipline, not that they’ve just filled a logbook,” said Buch of efforts in South Africa.
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