GPHC Residency programme very impressive – Veteran Gynaecologist

Jan 27, 2013 News

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Administered by veteran Gynaecologist, Dr Sterling Williams, the prestigious Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (CREOG) examinations was this past weekend delivered to the inaugural batch of doctors undertaking the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC’)s Residency Masters Degree Programme in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Dr Williams along with a team has during the past week been rendering their expert assistance to the programme.
According to Dr Williams, who is the Vice President for Education at the American College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the United States, during his stay he delivered several lectures and administered two examinations as part of his assistance to the residents undertaking the programme.
The CREOG examination is the annual exam taken by all US Ob/Gyn residents as a benchmark of their progress and competency and is now being offered to the local doctors participating in the GPHC Master’s programme.
Yesterday, Dr Williams said that he has learned that while there are cultural differences in a lot of things done in the health system here that are similar to what is done in the United States. “There are best practices in medicine and in my country and this country we both strive to do the best we can for the patients; that has been a very interesting and pleasant revelation.”
He said that he is particularly impressed with the “brand new” Residency Masters Degree Programme. He added that the progress that has been made in less than a year can be considered very gratifying. The Programme commenced in May of last year.
Dr Williams pointed to the fact that the six doctors undertaking the programme are of varying qualities but they all have the same desire to provide better women’s health care thereby allowing for improvement of the health system.
This past week, too, Dr Williams met with Minister of Health Dr Bheri Ramsaran, and other top officials associated with the Residency Programme at the Public Hospital. These officials, he said, had in fact alluded to a number of obstacles to improvement.
However, he noted that together they can put economic and political pressure upon whoever needs to have pressure brought on them.  “They all seem to agree that these things are necessary and are not negotiable and by working together they will get what they need; individually it would be a very difficult challenge.
“That is one of the things that I have learned; they are not only willing to work together but they have found it necessary in order to accomplish their main goals.”
Dr Williams also pointed to the fact that the health sector in Guyana, in the United States and other countries around the world are in need of many things to facilitate improvement. He said that there are many opportunities but there are not always necessary resources to bring them about.
“We have to set priorities and what I have seen this week is the setting of the appropriate priorities so that they can put their scarce resources in the right thing that everybody agrees on and that would be helpful.”
He noted that while there is a need for expensive equipment there are also other smaller needs that can be fulfilled now, thus the need for priorities and timetables to be put in place.
According to Assistant Director of the Residency Master’s programme, Dr Ruth Derkenne, with the four-year residency programme it is expected that doctors at the GPHC will be in a better position to not only treat and care for their patients, better, but it should also allow for a decrease in maternal and neonatal mortality.
“These are the big things that we want to see…the big changes, the big impacts and even more immediately is that the women who come to the Georgetown Public Hospital should feel more comfortable with the care they are getting; they should feel like they are having more specialised and concentrated care.”
Another visiting expert, Dr Tea Melton, an Assistant Professor of Reproductive Health at Case Medical Centre, also in the United States, said that once the programme comes to an end there will be a group of people who will hopefully stay in the system and go to some of the countries’ rural sites to share their knowledge.
“The expectation from our standpoint is that they do a lot of lifelong learning activities and that they remain as teachers and not just as practicing physicians; that they have a sense of responsibility to educate those younger than them and even to do community education,” said Dr Melton.
Another member of the visiting team Katie Might was tasked with undertaking needs assessment of the programme with a view of ensuring that future grants and fund raising activities and donors are streamlined to ensure that the programme is sustained over time. Might is the Programme Coordinator of WONDOOR.
WONDOOR (pronounced “one door”) is a new and innovative global health residency programme that grew out of the concept that women should have the same opportunity to enter the same door to quality health care whether they are “living abroad or right outside our own back doors.”

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