DOCTOR OF MEDICINE IN GENERAL SURGERY

Overview

Our surgical training program provides a comprehensive education in basic science and practical clinical knowledge. It provides cognitive, technical, communication, research professionalism and leadership skills required to excel as a surgeon.

All surgical residents receive extensive training in preoperative evaluation in the clinic and hospital settings, intraoperative technique, postoperative, critical care management, and follow up care. Residents rotate through several units within Kenyatta National Hospital and other hospitals, allowing for diversity, breadth and depth of training. In these training settings, the surgical residents are taught, supervised and evaluated by surgical faculty.

Operative and non-operative patient care training is provided with appropriate levels of supervision by faculty members to promote progressive autonomy of trainees that is consistent with University policy. Supervising faculty promote progressive autonomy of trainees that is consistent with University policy. Supervising faculty members assess the knowledge and skills of each resident and delegate to him or her appropriate level of patient care authority and responsibility. Assessment of residents in patient care is guided by competency required for general surgery

Philosophy

The philosophy of teaching will be based on adult learning principles with greater leaning on involvement of the residents, understanding their needs and meeting the needs in a learner-centered approach.

The goal is to produce independent, high quality surgeon who serves the community they stay in with passion and purpose.

Rationale of the programme

Recent researches on medical education has shown that great discrepancies in health that persist both within and between countries. This is added to the current challenges of new disease entities, demographic and epidemiological transitions. There is a feeling that medical education has not coped with the challenges largely because of fragmented, outdated and static curricula that produce ill-equipped graduates. The problem is systemic mismatch of competencies to patient and population needs; poor teamwork, persistent gender stratification of professional status; narrow technical focus without broader contextual understanding; episodic encounters rather than continuous care; quantitative and qualitative imbalances in the professional labor market and weak leadership to improve health-system performance.

The goal of surgical training is to produce surgeons who are capable of practicing independently, delivering safe and high-quality surgical care, and meeting the surgical needs of the community at large. This process involves building the anatomic and pathophysiologic fund of knowledge needed to understand surgical disease, acquiring and refining the cognitive and technical skills required to correct it, and developing the clinical judgment and decision making necessary to know when to exercise it. Integral to this process is the graduated independence or progressive autonomy afforded to trainees as they transition to the independent provision of safe, high-quality surgical care. Acquisition of clinical judgement requires and decision-making hours of deliberate practice in surgical training.

The MMed General Surgery Curriculum is based on these principles and will produce Surgeons with the necessary skills to cope with the global challenges of modern-day surgical practice. The program will therefore be highly marketable and able to compete with other International Programs. This curriculum will allow for intercalation for one year after completing the first three years in either Masters of science for one year or Doctor of philosophy (PhD) for two years in any aspects of the subject already handled that include basic sciences and clinical areas.

This is recognition that while MMEd general surgery is a professional degree, the current world requires practitioners who create knowledge and who are a dept in variety of aspects that help improve the work of surgery.

Mode of delivery of the programme

This programme will be delivered through

  • Face-Face full time
  • Modular;
  • Self-directed learning
  • Open, Distance Learning, and e-Learning
  • Blended

The Common Regulations for the Master of Medicine Degree in the University shall apply.

The candidates eligible for admission into the program shall fulfill the following conditions;

Hold a minimum of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) degree of the University of Nairobi or any equivalent qualification from an institution recognized by Senate.

Degree should be registrable by the Medical Practitioner’s and Dentists Board of Kenya for purposes of training and candidates must produce evidence of registration and retention with the same board at commencement of training.

Trainees will be required to have an insurance cover.

Credit transfer

A candidate may, on the recommendation of the School Board and approval by Senate, be allowed to transfer up to a maximum of one third of the taught (basic science courses) course units offered in the programme.

Applicants seeking course exemption shall send a formal application to the Director, Board of Postgraduate Studies through the Dean School of Medicine. Justification of request and evidence of credentials which would support such a request shall be attached to the application.

Application for course exemption shall be processed after payment of prescribed fee.

Applicants shall only be exempted from course units equivalent to those offered in the University of Nairobi.