Georgetown: Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Shamdeo Persaud is urging Continued Medical Education (CME) as well as self-elevation for medical personnel at the government level. This he said would improve the quality of patient care offered as well as room for promotion for medical staff.
Dr. Persaud was at the time addressing Regional Health Officers (RHO) at a meeting at Cara Lodge, on March 03, 2016.
According to Dr. Persaud, there are many young RHOs and the Ministry of Public Health has made a decision to provide training to those persons. PAHO is supporting the government in this effort.
Noting that the requirements to function and be appointed as an RHO is at least a Masters in Public Health along with a Medical Degree or some other Health Sciences Degree, the CMO said efforts are being made to provide training. “We are working throughout this year to try to affect some scholarships and training for key regional officers so that they could complete such training and be adequately skilled to execute those functions,” he announced.
Dr. Persaud told the gathering that he is currently working with the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) on an international training programme in the field of epidemiology. “Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme, that is developed by the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) and implemented across the world…there is a Caribbean Programme which we did not participate in initially but we have since obtained the grant to participate in this programme,” he said.
Further, the CMO explained that training would be for our mid-level, health centre supervisors, nurses, laboratory works and district medical officers. “If you complete all three stages of that programme, I think the University of the West Indies is considering awarding a Masters in Science,” he told the participants, adding that, the ministry would the Level One training which focuses a lot on the practical aspect of field epidemiology and laboratory training.
Medical practitioners were also encouraged to obtain their government CME credits.
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