Curriculum renewal for rural practice

The Medical Curriculum renewal for rural practice area is led by Prof Susan van Schalkwyk, a PhD in Higher Education expert who has been recruited to serve as the Educational Advisor for the SURMEPI project. The main aim of this theme is to implement and evaluate new innovative medical education models on a rural platform in order to improve recruitment, retention and quality of clinical service in rural practice, and which could be used as good-practice models in Africa. It is specific to and builds on the various curriculum innovations in the medical undergraduate curriculum, including those at the Rural Clinical School (RCS). An important dimension of this focus is the dissemination of expertise and research findings on these curriculum renewals within the broader MEPI community. The area focuses on curriculum design for and evaluation of a RCS model in Africa, work that has not been done before. Subprojects in this focus area include the RCS (Dr Therese Fish), E-Learning in the RCS, (Dr Steve Walsh and Dr Walter Liebrich), Family Medicine (Dr Francois Coetzee), and Medical students HIV training (Dr Lara Fairall).