● Prof Jectey Hesse

 The President of Accra College of Medicine, Prof Afua Adwo Jectey Hesse, has described the quality of medical training in Ghana as excellent, compared with what pertained in some countries.

According to her, “med­ical doctors in Ghana are trained in all the disciplines in medicine, after which they do their housemanship in Inter­nal Medicine, Surgery, Child Health, Obstetrics and Gynae­cology. After the completion of the housemanship, a doctor chooses a post-graduate programme in a particular discipline.”

Prof Jectey Hesse said doc­tors in Ghana were trained to become Primary Health Care Practitioners, and this had enabled them to take care of a good range of diseases in the country.

Speaking in an interview with The Spectator, she said the rigorous medical train­ing package in the country was what had made Ghanain doctors to be in high demand outside the country because of the experience they had gained at the lower level, as compared with doctors trained in many places out­side the country.

According to her, some medical students trained outside Ghana, for example, were not allowed to touch their patients during the clini­cal period.

She said one would realise that their training was basi­cally theoretical.

“How can you do your clin­ical training for three years without touching a patient?, she asked rhetorically.

She advised parents to desist from compelling their children to read medicine and other courses against their wish or beyond their capabili­ties because all children were not endowed in the same way.

Prof Hesse advised stu­dents, especially those who read General Science at the Senior High School but could not gain admission to read medicine, not to lose hope but persevere in their stud­ies, and better their grades, adding that medicine could be read after the first degree provided one was determined and remained focused.

“Get the skills and com­petences which will make you to become a good doctor. We have doctors who are reading law, agronomy and studying for post- graduate programmes in Information Communication Technology (ICT), developing apps to come out with innovations to aid in the field of medicine,” she advised.

Prof Jectey Hesse said a survey conducted by the Public Sector a couple of years ago had revealed that it cost at least an equivalent of $15.000.00 to train a medical student a year in Ghana.

She explained that in pub­lic institutions, the govern­ment in particular and often with the assistance from corporate bodies, took care of tuition, facilities, equipment and everything which were involved in the training of students.

Even though invariably due to the large numbers of stu­dents admitted to the public institutions, the facilities and trainers could not keep pace with the numbers.

She said, unfortunately, the private institutions had to do everything by themselves without any assistance from even corporate bodies.

She had advocated the establishment of a dedicat­ed Children’s Hospital in the country which would be equipped with all the facili­ties to facilitate the full range of disciplines and treatment for children.

She indicated that three theatres which were refur­bished at the Paediatric Block of the Korle-Teaching Hospital were over stretched because of the increasing number of patients these days.

 By Raymond Kyekye