The Deputy Director of the Directorate of Research, Innovation, and Consultancy (DRIC) at the University of Cape Coast, Professor Dorcas Obiri Yeboah has bemoaned the low involvement of medical practitioners in academia saying the number is not enough to help train the next future generation of medics in the country.
To her, training medical students will be impossible without medical professionals.
“So imagine saying that we want the best carpentry things available, tables and chairs, but there is no carpenter to train you to do it so, you are supposed to be trained by someone who has never done it. How does that sound like? Will you get the best out of it?” she questioned.
Professor Obiri Yeboah made this comment at the 2nd edition of the Annual Think Outside the Box Conference and Community Service Awards organized by the Medical Students’ Association, UCC under the theme, “Beyond the Consulting Room”
Think Outside the Box is an annual conference held by Coats and Scrubs in partnership with the U.C.C Medical Students’ Association and Community Service Awards to provide additional skills needed in raising holistic leaders in the healthcare space and to challenge health science students to step outside the confines of clinical practice to transform innovative ideas into solutions.
Professor Obiri Yeboah is of the view that there should be continuous training of people to come out and practice the profession of Medics in academia.
She, therefore, called for the active involvement of medics in academia
“You need doctors to train doctors. You need nurses to train nurses Of course, you will have additional staff who are not doctors because there are other roles that they also play in terms of what they teach. But the main profession and its ethics and all the other aspects of living that profession can best be taught by someone who is practicing it. That is why we need doctors to go into academia.”
She said a career as a medic in academia is a very fulfilling one as such students should consider that and support the training.
Meanwhile, the Founder of Doctors in Service Clinic (DIS) in Cape Coast, Dr. Andrew Herzuah says being a health practitioner is good but not enough to make a maximum impact in one’s society.
The owner of four hospital facilities in Ghana indicated that though saving lives is the ultimate, medics must also expand their innovative ideas to other areas.
“As we speak, I am not seeing a patient but we have four hospitals that are seeing patients all over. It’s also a system by the grace of God I have been able to build. As seeing patients and the patients are satisfied, they are happy and they go at a lower cost because we see people who may even come and they don’t have money. But because you built the system you can even support some of those things in society.”
Speaking on the topic, Medics in Health entrepreneurship, Dr. Herzuah however advised them to seek advice while entering into entrepreneurship to avoid having their dreams cut short due to challenges they face.
He advised saying, “You don’t have to run too fast ahead of yourself otherwise you encounter problems. You’re going to borrow money and do some big projects that probably might not fetch much; you’ll be paying so much debt so you need to talk to people, you need to get advice and you’re also mindful of people who quench your fire and then grow little by little organically so that you don’t outgrow your resources”
He notes that it is important for those wanting to enter into health entrepreneurship to also ensure their employees are given the needed training to help in achieving their visions.
On her part, the founder of Coats and Scrubs, the main partner of the Think Outside the Box Conference, Dr. Adwoa Boatemaa Bonsu explained that the program was introduced to augment the traditional curriculum of the medical school and equipped the beneficiaries with other soft skills not included in the curricula.
She notes that the six-year-long course study in medical school is characterized by hard work and studying and is mostly done at the detriment of developing soft skills, entrepreneurial skills, and communication skills among others.
She, therefore, urged students to take advantage of the knowledge gained at the Think Outside the Box annual conference to chart a career path and successful future for themselves.
Read more news here
Source: Eric Sekyi/ATLFMNEWS
