UG Medical School

Jun 04, 2009 Editorial

The news that the medical program of the University of Guyana has received accreditation by the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP) is most heartening.

Amidst all the gloom and doom about the supposedly terminal state of UG, this announcement demonstrates that it is possible to attain and maintain international standards – and in one of the most exacting areas of study. The question is why the administrators of the other faculties cannot reach those same standards?
In light of the negativity emanating from UG, the Health Sciences medical program was viewed with some degree of scepticism by many in the community. This was in the face of the demonstrated competency of its graduates within the local health sector for over a decade.
The cynicism is part of a syndrome that suffuses many societies as they become enmeshed in a lack of self-belief and self-esteem, precipitated by pessimism: they refuse to believe that they can produce anything of value.

It is to be noted that many of the doctors that graduated from the UG program went on to pursue postgraduate studies in the US, Canada and Britain and they performed with flying colours.
CAAM-HP is an organisation that was established some years ago by the Caricom governments to vet the teaching institutions in medicine and veterinary science.
It received inputs from the developed countries from which a long line of distinguished West Indian medical practitioners had graduated; to produce one hundred and thirty-nine criteria that had to be satisfied before an institution could be deemed “accredited”.

Three years ago it had conferred provisional accreditation to the UG medical program with the caveat that some identified “areas of governance and facilities” needed rectification by the end of last year.
These obviously were addressed and now the implicit equivalence of the programs at UWI and UG have been recognised, since the UG medical graduates can enter the UWI graduate programs (medical specialities) without the need for qualifying examinations. This, as the Medical Director of the School of Medicine, Dr Carl Max Hanoman noted, is a very massive achievement.
The Director, his staff and all who are involved must be congratulated for this seminal achievement but, as was pointed out, they cannot rest on their laurels for two reasons. Firstly, the accreditation will be reviewed in 2012, but secondly and more importantly, because of the opportunities presented by the success of the school.

Guyana has an endemic shortage of doctors, and presently, one can find a host of Cuban doctors that have had to fill the breech in our public hospitals. Their language gap, however, has presented a formidable barrier to these doctors in delivering the optimum level of health care and this is where local doctors can save the day.
The government should continue to provide the inputs that will facilitate the growth of the medical school, but we believe that in the near future it can become self-sufficient. The low fees for local students and those from the Caribbean have been noted.

With our wage structure stuck in the doldrums for the foreseeable future, we cannot expect much greater revenues from local students but the opportunities are excellent for at least a doubling of fees for Caribbean students, who are now assured of continuing their studies unimpeded in their local institutions.
The retention of our medical graduates will continue to pose a problem since our wage structure is at such variance from that of the developed countries, which will now be even more receptive to them because of our rise in standards.

The authorities should consider the suggestion of the Medical Director to fund the postgraduate studies of our graduates on the condition that they give Guyana five years service. Surely this is no great burden in view of the additional subsidy of their initial studies at UG.
Once again our hats off to the administration, the Director and Staff of the UG Medical Schools.

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