1. Experience in a developing country valuable?

Did you experience working in a developing country as relevant to your future work as a doctor as working in your own country? There is now some evidence that such medical experience abroad is probably just as valuable as experience at home. That is relevant to convince those concerned with medical education who hesitate to let young doctors go get medical experience in such a setting. Let’s hope this paper helps to remove barriers for those who justly want to spend some time in their medical career in the developing world.

Conclusions

We found interesting differences in clinical and organisational performance between GP’s with and without medical experience in developing countries and between their practices. It is not possible to attribute these differences to this experience, because the choice for medical experience in a tropical country probably reflects individual differences in professional motivation and personality. Experience in a developing country may be just as valuable for later performance in general practice as experience at home.    

See also: Experience as a doctor in the developing world: does it benefit the clinical and organisational performance in general practice?

van den Hombergh P, de Wit NJ, van Balen FA.

BMC Fam Pract. ;10(1):80.

2. The birth of an African journal

A new journal for PHC and family medicine in Africa exist since 2014. This is great.
Click here for year 1 nr 1.