The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has supported the East, Central and Southern Africa College of Physicians since its inception and continues to provide mentorship, technical support and access to a range of external experts.
The college has an ambition to improve access to healthcare in Africa by doubling the number of physicians being trained in the region by 2030.
Established in December 2015, ECSACOP is rewriting the way in which postgraduate medical education is delivered and assessed in East, Central and Southern Africa. With a common curriculum and standardised training methodologies, the college's postgraduate medical qualification will be accepted as the gold standard throughout the region.
College without walls
ECSACOP is a ‘college without walls’. With training centres in its six member regions and an emphasis on formative assessment and providing feedback, ECSACOP is responding to the variations in postgraduate training structure and content within the region. The first training sites were established in 2018.
The college developed a new internal medicine curriculum, which encompasses the skills and characteristics that physicians need to care for the health of their communities. The training curriculum will be delivered through an in-service apprenticeship model in existing health facilities.
Through this approach, ECSACOP aims to harmonise internal medicine training across the region, establishing regional standards and ultimately improving health outcomes for patients.
In addition to following a training curriculum developed by leading physicians from East, Central and Southern Africa to address the region’s specific health challenges, physicians become better equipped to lead, manage and steward the vital resources that can dramatically improve health outcomes for all, especially those in remote or difficult-to-reach communities.
Increasing the number of physicians, and transforming their education at the same time, has the potential to accelerate health equity and inclusive economic growth.
Goals
ECSACOP’s focus on equipping physicians with the requisite skills to become effective teachers and leaders – as much as effective clinicians – will radically improve the management of health systems in the region. Its goals are to:
• increase the number of doctors in training by 50% by 2025
• double the number being trained by 2030 – in the regions rather than the capital cities
• harmonise standards across the region
• positively impact 200 million lives.
ECSACOP's annual conference 2024
‘Towards equitable, collaborative, and enhanced healthcare delivery in sub-Saharan Africa’
The ECSACOP annual conference is a prestigious event that brings together physicians, healthcare professionals, and researchers across East, Central and Southern Africa. This year’s conference is a platform for discussing key challenges and advancements in medical practice and training, to improve overall healthcare in sub-Saharan Africa. This conference also serves as a networking opportunity delegates.
Over 300 delegates are expected to attend and will explore a series of themes including:
• patient-centred approaches and outcomes to integrated care
• from the bench to the bedside – innovations in clinical care delivery
• disease burden and outcomes
• data science and clinical care
• emerging disease outbreaks.
The conference will take place on 29–31 August 2024 in Uganda. Register to join colleagues from different parts of the continent and abroad to share best practices and build lasting networks.
Visit the ECSACOP conference website for more information.
For any queries regarding the conference, please contact:
Martha
Telephone – +256 786 321 578 / +256 757 366 587
Email – conference@apu.co.ug
Useful resources
• Read an interview with ECSACOP’s president and RCP international adviser (IA) for Kenya, James Jowi. He shares an insight into his ECSACOP journey and his priorities for his presidential term.
• Explore more about women working in healthcare across Africa. ESCACOP’s registrar Dr Tamara Phiri shares an insight into her journey into medicine and the challenges she has overcome.
• Hear from past president and IA for Zimbabwe, Professor Innocent Gangaidzo, as he shares more about the journey to delivering specialist physicians in Africa with ECSACOP.