ESOG Live CME Broadcast
The Ethiopian Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ESOG) conducted a Continuing Medical Education (CME) at the Ethiopian Public Health.
The ESOG-ACOG-CIRHT collaborative project was launched in June, 2016 with the objective of addressing four thematic areas: Resident Ship, CME, Journal and Certification and Accreditation. The thematic areas to be addressed by the collaborative project later added three more areas to its list: IT, PR & Communication and Leadership Development. The issue of medical ethics was added later as yet another focus area of the project.
SPHMMC Quality Improvement Workshop
SPHMMC OB-Gyn department conducts Quality Improvement workshop – (Courtesy of SPHMMC)
Quality Improvement (QI) is one of the major components in the St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical Center OB-Gyn department, to ensure that systematic and continuous actions are integrated to measure service delivery and the system of care. Once initiated by the OB-Gyn faculties, a range of QI projects have been developed and implemented. To keep that momentum going, and insure a standard approach to all future QI projects, 21 participants including SPHMMC and St. Peter Hospital OB-Gyn faculty and staff from the SPHMMC Pediatrics department attended a training workshop June 1–2, 2018, at the Sapphire Addis Hotel…
Fozia Jemal, Family Planning Nurse
Fozia Jemal, Family Planning Nurse at Black Lion Hospital’s Michu clinic, Addis Ababa University.
We do all sorts of things to make it easy for women seeking family planning services. We are next to the maternal health clinic and share a waiting room, so to make it easier for the girls and women seeking family planning, we give them appointment cards so they can come right in. Once they are here, we have a separate area for them so they can have their privacy. We want them to feel comfortable and confident so they can make the right decisions for themselves. For their health. The word is getting out so we are seeing more clients than we used to.
We also reach out to the women in the waiting area for the maternal health clinic. We can take advantage of that captive audience to give them information. We give lectures every day on antenatal care, prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) and also on family planning and especially postpartum family planning, so they know about it before they have their babies. The facilities have really improved. Now my hope is that we have more girls and women coming here to use them.
Roman Asrat, Head Nurse
Roman Asrat, Head Nurse, Mekelle Michu clinic: Providing comprehensive maternal health and family planning services in one place puts women at ease.
Roman Asrat oversees the Michu (“Comfort” in Amharic) Clinic at the Mekelle University College of Health Sciences’ Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. In the 18 months since the clinic opened, demand for its services has increased across the Tigray region.
“When mothers come here and get all their services, they feel very happy. Before, they used to get services in different places – the laboratory was in another place, the pharmacy was also in a different place, postnatal was also given in another place. So that wasn’t comfortable for clients.
So they fell happy and free to use all the services, including Antenatal, Postnatal, vaccination, Family Planning, Safe Abortion, laboratory, pharmacy and all services are given here.
Access for Quality Reproductive Health Care
The Center for International Reproductive Health at the University of Michigan (CIRHT) in collaboration with the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and the Addis Ababa Health Bureau held a sanitation workshop for health centers and private hospitals providing access to the reproductive health needs of women.
FMOH has collaborated with CIRHT in expanding “Michu” Family Planning Clinics, which provide women with compassionate, respectful, quality reproductive health care in 11 university hospitals across Ethiopia.
The workshop, heald in early February 2018, aimed to spread the word about the Michu clinics and their services. It also indicated how the different health care providers facilities could work together to improve the quality of care for the women and girls who have reproductive health needs.
The participants discussed on how to link the health services. For example, some health centers provide family planning service, but do not include permanent methods, while Michu clinics can give the full range of family planning services for women and men. The second service area identified for collaboration was second trimester safe abortion. Through an expanded collaboration between facilities, more women can have access to more services across Addis Ababa, and eventually across the entire country.
ESOG: Quality And Safe Surgery In Obstetric And Gynecologic Practice In Ethiopia
Quality and Safe Surgery in Obstetric and Gynecologic Practice in Ethiopia’ was the theme of the 26th annual conference of Ethiopian Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ESOG) which was organized on February 6 and 7, 2018. Continuing Medical Education courses were available to members from all over the country in the days before the conference.
Considering the close collaboration efforts of the Center for International Reproductive Health Training at the University of Michigan (CIRHT), the society and its members, Dr. Mengistu Hailemariam, CIRHT’s Country Representative in Ethiopia noted in his keynote “CIRHT in collaboration with Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and ten partner universities established ‘Michu’ clinics with the intention of offering respectful and women-friendly reproductive health services, customized research support for OB-GYN faculty members, and ignited and boosted the culture of scientific inquiry.
We have helped to introduce and promote skill lab-based teaching in the OB-GYN departments, which is encouragingly trending and relevant at this time of increasing medical student enrollment.” In addition to the support provided to partner universities, CIRHT is working closely with ESOG to improve the quality of OB-GYN residency programs, continuous medical education, the Ethiopian Journal of Reproductive Health, and other areas, including examinations, accreditation and certification, leadership training, ethics and ICT.
CIRHT in Ethiopia Annual Review Meeting
CIRHT has supporting medical education in Ethiopia for more than two years, working in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health and 10 partner universities. The support has come in the form of developing faculty skills and leadership, integrated training for improved care, and research to improve evidence based practice. To mark the success of the Ethiopian year 2009 (2016/2017), on September 4 and 5, 2017, the CIRHT Annual Review meeting was held in Bishoftu, with the participation of all CIRHT staff, representatives of the 10 partner university Ob-Gyn and Midwifery department heads, and FMOH representative Dr. Ephreim Tekle, director of the Maternal and Child Health Directorate. The meeting was opened by Dr. Mengistu Hailemariam, CIRHT in Ethiopia’s Program Director, with a speech saluting the active involvement of all partners in the achievements of 2009. The meeting enabled partners to share their views in observed gaps and future collaboration ideas for successful implementation of the support.
The meeting included reports on Medical Education, Midwifery Education, Service, Research, Logistics, Communication, Monitoring and Evaluation, IT, Commodity and Supply and Finance and HR activities. The reports indicated major achievements:
- the availability and functionality of skill labs at almost all facilities;
- the launch of the revised national medical curriculum
- the commencement of a peer-assisted learning project
- the introduction of an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE)
- standardization of the family planning and comprehensive abortion care syllabus for medical and midwifery students
- distribution of reference materials
- mapping affiliation sites
- IEC material development
- establishment of seven Michu clinics
- quality improvement of family planning and comprehensive abortion care services through capacity-building activities focused on value clarification and skill development
- research being conducted by Ob-Gyn faculty of partner universities and initiated for midwifery faculty.
CIRHT staff incorporated partner comments and feedback into the ambitious work plan for the next year, seeking to fill gaps, support and monitor existing ongoing academic, service and research activities, finalize simulation lab and Michu clinic construction, create a sustainable QI system, and support a family planning commodity supply chain system with FMOH.
High-Fidelity Lapsim Training
Improving laparoscopic surgical services is one way in which CIRHT is supporting its 10 partner university medical schools and their associated teaching hospitals. Skills training using advanced and basic “lapsim” devices is being introduced in the skill labs of all 10 institutions. and training c surgical service and skill training. In establishing better Ob-Gyn training, CIRHT has created access to Lapsim simulators in the skill labs of 10 universities in Ethiopia.
Following the provision of lapsim simulators themselves, CIRHT organized training of trainers, and supported the first rounds of engaging students. Another aspect is teaching the maintenance and ongoing service of the lapsims, so they can be used for many years to come. The hi-fidelity simulation-based training allows students to experience a wide variety of different clinical scenarios, which has been proven to be one of the most efficient teaching aids for laparoscopic interventions. Those interventions ultimately improves the reproductive health and lives of women and girls who expect quality comprehensive family planning services.
Our Ob-Gyn Departments will actually save time, create access to many more procedure trainings, and use safe technology to give RH and FP skill training to residents. – Dr. Eskinder Kebede (AAU).
Content Standardization Workshop
CIRHT organized a Family Planning (FP) and Comprehensive Abortion Care (CAC) undergraduate medical curriculum content standardization workshop on March 8 and 9, 2017 in Addis Ababa, collaborating with CIRHT’s ten university partners to develop teaching tools that could be used throughout the country. 20 Ob-Gyn faculty and other relevant university representatives joined CIRHT staff.
The workshop was guided by rapid assessment findings of current, disjointed FP and CAC course delivery, leading to a rationale for standardization. When the CAC and FP syllabuses were assessed and reviewed, the assessment indicated gaps and inconsistencies in content, teaching and assessment methods, and the duration given to cover CAC and FP topics. A gap in practical skill training was identified as one of the major challenges in enabling medical students give quality service, which could be rectified with more time in skill labs and in clinics and wards.
The workshop developed a standard syllabus for CAC and FP teaching. The participants formed a framework and populated it with content including teaching materials and methods, presentations, case studies and videos, as well as the duration assigned for each topic.
The workshop also looked the new nationwide Ob-Gyn curriculum and its treatment of FP and CAC. One important addition to the academic exercise was the acknowledgement that value clarification and attitude transformation was an integral element in teaching CAC and FP , and ultimately in being able to offer quality service to patients and clients once the medical students begin to practice.
EMA’s 53rd Annual Conference
The Ethiopian Medical Association (EMA) marked 53 years of accomplishment with its Annual Medical Conference, International Health Exhibition, Blood Donation and EMA Run from April 24-30, 2017. The conference theme was ‘Being a Doctor in Ethiopia: the Challenges and Opportunities.’ Over 2,000 medical doctors from all over the country participated in the conference. Continuing Medical Education was provided to medical health professionals at St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College and at Addis Ababa University’s Black Lion Hospital. The association declared April “Blood Donation Month’ with the motto, ‘We Serve with our Knowledge and Blood’. EMA in collaboration with the Red Cross organized donation events in hospitals and medical schools across the country throughout the month of April.
On April 30, EMA in collaboration with Center for International Reproductive Health Training (CIRHT) organized the EMA run celebrating the theme ‘Family Planning for Prosperity’. The run covered 5km in Addis Ababa, starting from the Summit Roundabout. The message of “Family Planning changing the welfare of family and the country” was promoted all along the 5km course. FP is part of the country’s National Maternal and Child Health program that is led by Federal Ministry of Health.