Rwanda Post-Graduate Diploma in Emergency Medicine

Rwanda

In 2011, the Rwandan Ministries of Health and Education invited sidHARTe to assist the University of Rwanda’s College of Medicine and Health Sciences in the development of a Post-Graduate Diploma (PGD) course in Emergency and Critical Care Medicine.

Designed for general practitioners (GPs), the PGD is a two-year, part-time program that gave doctors the opportunity to have a combination of classroom-based learning and hands-on clinical practice in emergency care. The unique part-time nature of the course allowed GPs to continue to provide patient care in their district hospitals, alternating this work with their participation in the program in the training program at the University Central Hospital of Kigali (CHUK).

In 2013 the Human Resources for Health (HRH) program funded the Master of Medicine (MMed) in Emergency Medicine. The PGD served as the first of a four-year MMed (residency in the United states) Emergency Medicine Program.  

sidHARTe also supported the Rwanda Emergency Care Association (RECA) founded by Dr. Mbanjumucyo Gabin, Emergency and Critical Care Medicine Resident.  RECA’s Executive and Management Committees are largely made up of current Emergency and Critical Care Medicine residents and aim to promote and improve emergency care through teaching, research and education.

Monitoring & Evaluation

Educational programs such as the PGD course in Emergency and Critical Care Medicine are central to improving the quality of emergency care available at district hospitals.