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As in the case of intercalated degrees, a national MB chB/phd programme would have to be adequately resourced and adapted to local conditions. The many BScMed honours programmes already available could readily become
‘qualifying courses’ for concurrent and subsequent hands-on research leading to PhD degrees – this effectively spreads the load of development work between non-clinical and clinical staff, and establishes sustained networks of personal support and encouragement amongst both ex-students and their teachers.
Experience in certain countries, notably the UK, has indicated that concurrent MB ChB and PhD/M studies can cause some students to ‘fall between two stools’, and it is probably necessary in each instance to ensure that mentoring takes place to avoid such situations. A flexible approach to career development is absolutely necessary in relation to the challenging issues confronting individual students/trainees.
LOCAL POLICY AND PLANNING INITIATIVES THAT SEEK TO
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4. Bring about demographic transformation of the academic leadership cadre and specialists in the country.
The next step in this process is intended to be the development of a strategy and associated implementation process, which may be assisted by the present report.
the colleges of Medicine of South africa project – 2007
The Colleges of Medicine of South Africa (CMSA) convened a policy Forum on tertiary academic Medicine and Specialist training on 24–25 October 2007 and again on 1–2 December 2008. The aim of the Forum was to bring together leaders, policy-makers, decision makers and stakeholders to discuss strategic issues with regard to tertiary academic medicine and specialist training in South Africa. The output from the event was an agreement to continue to create a forum for discussion and debate on issues relevant to academic medicine and specialist training; a memorandum was sent to relevant government departments informing them of the CMSA initiative to improve specialist and sub-specialist training.
department of Science and technology’s ten-year innovation plan – 2008
The purpose of the dSt’s ten-Year innovation plan, which was published in 2008, is to develop a knowledge-based economy in which the production and dissemination of knowledge leads to economic benefits and enriches all fields of human endeavour. The Plan identifies four pillars for progress:
1. Human capital development;
2. Knowledge generation and exploitation (R&D);
3. Knowledge infrastructure;
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4. Enablers to address the ‘innovation chasm’ between research results and socioeconomic outcomes.
One of the five grand challenges to act as the substrate for research and development is the ‘Farmer to pharma’ value chain to strengthen the bio- economy. Over the next decade, South Africa is urged to become a world leader in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, based on the country’s unique indigenous resources. To succeed in this area, South Africa will need to produce an expanded pool of appropriately trained clinical researchers.
Indeed, the ten-year plan recognises that a significant strengthening of the production of human capital and improvement of the institutional environment for knowledge generation is necessary to achieve its goals.
The targets for this human capital development programme over the next 10 years are as follows:
1. Five hundred Research Chairs by 2018 (70 in place by 2008);
2. About 6 000 PhDs produced per year in all science, engineering and technology disciplines by 2018 (currently 600 per year are produced).
FINDINGS
1. The clinical research force is ageing and has also been steadily declining in numbers since the early 1990s.
2. The combined burden of clinical teaching and training, health service, and research thus falls on a shrinking and ageing pool of academics in health science faculties.
3. This means that there is limited capacity to increase the production of properly trained health care workers and to train and inspire a new generation of clinical researchers.
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4. Simultaneously, the situation has brought about an inability to cope with the increasing demands of clinical service imposed by the colliding epidemics of infectious disease (TB and HIV/AIDS) and non-communicable disease (heart disease and stroke).
5. A national plan involving the spending over three years of half-a-billion rand has recently been implemented to enhance clinical training at all levels in South African higher education institutions
6. There is, by contrast, currently no national plan to provide coordinated support for the training and development of clinical researchers, and grossly insufficient support for research professorships and training fellowships in the clinical research field.
7. There is little incentive for clinicians to train in doctoral programmes, resulting in a very small number of the clinical professoriate having doctoral degrees.
8. There are a number of institutional research ethics training programmes in the country for both researchers and research ethics committee members.
9. The National Human Resources Plan for Health that was launched by the National Department of Health in 2006 recognises the general shortage of health professionals in South Africa, and has identified a number of priority areas for implementation.
10. The Colleges of Medicine of South Africa (CMSA) has a Policy Forum on Tertiary Academic Medicine and Specialist Training.
11. The DST’s Ten-Year Innovation Plan aims to develop a knowledge-based economy in which the production and dissemination of knowledge leads to economic benefits and enriches all fields of human endeavour.