The Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS) is seeking the support of government to raise $2 million to build two simulation centres in the country for the effective training of medical doctors.
This is to avoid the age-old training where doctors perform operations on live patients after few observations and assisted operations, which has been seen as “not the best way to train”.
The Rector of the GCPS, Prof. Richard Adanu, said this when the leadership of the College paid a courtesy call on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo at the Jubilee House in Accra yesterday.
The visit was to brief the President on the activities earmarked for the 20th anniversary of the College and also invite him to the programme.
GCPS is a public institution, established in 2003, to provide postgraduate medical training in medicine, surgery and related disciplines.
Prof. Adanu said the state and the college alone could not bear the cost and, therefore, pleaded with the President to use his influence and good office to help in raising the funds from within and outside the country.
He explained that currently the training was that doctors observed their bosses perform a surgery, assisted to do another and then the next time they were given the instruments, “the person you’re working on is actually a live patient. It has been seen that this is not the best way to train”.
Best Way
Prof. Adanu said the best way to train was to get people to a certain level of proficiency using mannequins and, then, when they reached a certain level, they were allowed to touch a human being.
He explained that one of the simulation centres would be in the northern part of the country and the other in the southern part to spread the benefits of training.
Laparoscopy
He also mentioned that another 21st Century infrastructure the College was looking to establish was Laparoscopy surgery or keyhole surgery centres to be set up in the public sector to facilitate specialist training and patient care.
On the remuneration of retired medical professors who continue to train specialists, he said the process of offering them contracts should be smooth and akin to that of the public universities where they were offered automatic contracts.
“It would be good if you could use your good office to get us to create contract consultant positions for retired fellows so that they can continue to train and not just retire at 60 and then create a big gap, especially when we want to cover the country.
We need every teacher to continue to train and provide service,” he added.
He again made a passionate appeal to the President to consider increasing the allowances of medical doctors who offered training at their facilities.
President Akufo-Addo gave an assurance that government was going to support the college in its activities for it to carry out these important responsibilities more efficiently.
He noted that government would follow up on all the issues they had raised for the betterment of medical training and service in the country.
Credit: Daily Graphic Online
