NASSAU — As some junior doctors express concern for their future, Health Minister Dr Duane Sands admitted yesterday officials must do a better job at developing young doctors, The Tribune reported on May 14 in a story written by Rashad Rolle.
His statement followed a Tribune article that highlighted the experience of a doctor who said he dropped out of the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) post-graduate programme only to succeed as a doctor in the United Kingdom.
Dr Young Sing blamed poor feedback from lecturers and alleged bias for the low matriculation rates of UWI’s Doctor of Medicine programmes. Dr Sing’s views reflect those of many junior doctors in the public healthcare system.
“For whatever reason young physicians are not able to progress through the institutions as well as we would like and certainly what it means is we ought to make whatever adjustments are necessary to assist and to mentor and to develop these young physicians,” Dr Sands said.
“Relying on historical anecdotes might make people warm and fuzzy but it does’t change the current reality. As we start to look at what types of things that ought to happen I think we need to revise our programmes, make a decision on how many people we will be taking going forward, make sure we are providing proper feedback, coaching and evaluations and where people are not performing they need to be alerted to that fact early. We have to design a system where we hold not only students accountable but ourselves, the teachers. Like everything in this country there is a need for radical reform.”
Dr Sands was speaking about doctors operating under the guidance of consultants in the public healthcare system.
As for UWI specifically, he said: “While the majority of Bahamian medical students train through the UWI programme and a majority of residents train through a programme at UWI, we do not dictate to UWI what they should do. We need to make our facilities responsive to the needs of our students even as we advocate for changes at the university level. What that also means is that the University of the Bahamas will now need to look at its own medical school.
