The Primary Health Care Department at the Ministry of Health and Prevention, MoHAP, recently organized a virtual graduation ceremony for the second batch of general practitioners in family medicine specialty.
The program, which is the first of its kind across the UAE, aims to boost the skills and capabilities of the general practitioners to help enhance the healthcare quality,
Present at the ceremony were His Excellency Dr. Hussein Abdel Rahman Al-Rand, Undersecretary of the Ministry’s Health Assistant Sector, Health Centers and Clinics, Dr. Aisha Suhail, Director of the Primary Health Care Department, and Dr. Haifa Fares, Director of the Family Medicine Residency program.
In 2018, 51 doctors enrolled in the first version of the program from across the country, while 31 doctors joined the second version, of them, 13 doctors have been chosen as trainers in the program. Their job is to follow up on the newly enrolled doctors to provide them with the necessary support and train them on various skills.
Raising productivity of doctors as per international medical rules
In his opening remarks, Dr. Hussein Abdel Rahman Al-Rand underlined the significance of this program as it is related to accomplishing the objectives of UAE Vision 2021 “to provide one family doctor for every 1,000 people”, therefore MoHAP has launched this program in partnership with the World Health Organization to increase knowledge, avoid medical errors, and raise doctors’ productivity as per international medical rules.
“The studies showed a decline in the negative health indicators and healthcare costs in the countries which have adopted the primary health care and family medicine systems,” he added.
Al Rand commended the efforts of those in charge of the program, which the trainers and graduates all the best and success on achieving the objectives and aspirations of MoHAP in terms of providing comprehensive and integrated healthcare services in innovative and sustainable ways that prevent the spread of disease in society.
E-learning platform
For her part, Dr. Haifa Fares said the program is being managed by Emirati family medicine doctors and it is planned to be part of licensing MoHAP’s general practitioners in the future.
“The program mainly depends on a distinctive e-learning platform in addition to some interactive lectures. This would help raise the productivity of general practitioners by about 70% which is a high percentage compared to the internationally capacity support programs.