ACHEST at the 4th East African Health Professional Educators conference in Ethiopia
Dr. Elsie Kiguli-Malwadde, Director of Health workforce, Education and Development at African Centre for Global Health and Social Transformation (ACHEST) participated in the 4th East African Health Professional Educators Association annual conference held in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia from the 20th -22nd June 2016.
The conference attracted 250 participants from all the East African countries as well as Sudan, USA, Canada and Ethiopia with a comprehensive program premised on the theme, Quality of
Dr. Elsie Kiguli-Malwadde presenting at the conference in Addis Ababa Health Sciences Education in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. Kiguli-Malwadde made two (2) presentations; one a plenary presentation titled: “The Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI), accomplishments, challenges & lessons learned.”
She also conducted a workshop on Promoting Women’s Health and Learning for Health Professions Students.
In her presentations Dr. Kiguli-Malwadde expounded on the accomplishments, challenges and lessons learned from MEPI project and some of the accomplishments sited included; supporting relevant research globally, increasing the numbers and quality of health care workers (HCWs) trained, retaining HCWs overtime in areas they are mostly needed. Meanwhile on Promoting Women’s Health and Learning for Health Professions Students, she called upon the participants to carry out interventions and advocacy that will improve the health of women.
The rich discussions elicited experiences of how reproductive health and rights have been in cooperated into the curricular of different schools; how gender related issues are tackled differently at different schools with some been made mandatory to be in cooperated in every course. It also focused on sexual violence, assault at universities among others.
The next annual conference will be held in June 2017 in Dar es Salam, Tanzania and it will focus on Women’s health as one of the key topics of discussion.