Ukwanda Rural Clinic School

While wrapping up to go to BIUST I paid a visit to the Ukwanda Rural Clinic School on the Worcester campus  of Stellenbosch University (SU) (http://blogs.sun.ac.za/ukwanda/ukwanda-rural-clinical-school/). This came about after a conversation with SU’s Pieter Kloppers. Pieter and I chatted about how developing countries are investing a lot of resources into educating young people who end up leaving the country to work in more developed nations. Since this is one of issues I think I will have to deal with at BIUST, where the research needs to be applicable to Botswana’s challenges, but of an international standard in order to provide the best possible education to the students. 

Ukwanda Rural Clinic School
credit http://www.summo.org/#/presentationsandmeetings/

Pieter directed me to Prof Wynand van der Merwe (former Dean of Medicine at SU) who in turn directed me to Dr Frans Krige, head of Ukwanda.  Ukwanda was established to address South Africa’s need for doctors in rural areas.  Doctors in these areas have to work independently, does not necessarily have access to advance diagnostic equipment and have to deal with a broad range of patients in an isolated environment. The research leading up to the establishment found that thriving rural doctors not only usually come from a rural area, but also have to be exposed to rural medicine during their training. Thus the clinic was established in Worcester, a town about 100 km from Cape Town and whose provincial hospital serves a wide rural area (from Hermanus to Ceres). The clinic accommodates medical and allied health students and seems to be a great success.

It is attractive to students since the groups are smaller and thus more personal attention can be given.  Bursaries are also provided to students as well as also luxury student accommodation on site which is also very close to the provincial hospital where clinical duties are performed. Furthermore, there is better coordination between departments since personnel literally share the same office. However, students are screened for psychological issues that might impact their performance since it is a higher stress environment with emphasis on learning quickly and working independently.  

During a recent visit from the National Council of Provinces the delegation was very impressed with the results achieved there. Dr Krige ascribes Ukwanda’s success to the fact that they had high level support, a clear objective and a need to be innovative while adhering to established best practices. Despite BIUST not having a medical school I think the model can serve as a handy reference point on how to train students for developing African countries’ needs in such a way that the training is not “wasted” on students who will be immediately lost to the overseas job market. Which brings me nicely to my next topic of training students for a (still) unstructured skills economy.

Ukwanda website
Guardian article re Ukwanda