There is a serious shortage of physicians in poor countries such as in Africa compared to rich countries in Europe. The number of physicians per population range from 1 doctor for every 5000 people in Kenya to 40 doctors for 5000 people in United kingdom.
This shortage is further exacerbated by migration of doctors from these poor areas especially in sub-Saharan Africa to rich countries in Europe and the United States. Today, 10 % of all doctors trained in India actually practice outside the India mainly in the United States. There are also now more Malawi doctors work in Manchester, England than in Malawi.
This shortage is in part the reason why 1.3 billion people around the world have no access to safe and effective health care. To address this shortage, it is estimated that there is a need to train 4 million healthcare providers to meet the healthcare needs of these underserved areas.
Training healthcare providers in general and specifically doctors is very costly using current educational system. In the united states, the cost of becoming a doctor is between $200,000 and $300,000 for the four year medical school alone.
At teachmemedicine.org, we believe we can help by training local students at very low costs by enrolling them in our virtual medical school where they can access online classes via the internet. By combining virtual medical education, and obtaining practical training thru local medical centers and hospitals, students in underserved areas can be trained to become healthcare providers ranging from mid-level providers to physicians.
After taking one year of pre-medical classes online and passing a proctored examination, students will then be admitted to virtual medical school. From the very first day of medical school, student’s time will be divided between medical school online classes and clinical responsibilities in medical offices or hospitals.
Virtual medical school courses include Anatomy, Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Embryology, Genetics, Behavioral health, Immunology, Neuroscience, Physiology, Microbiology, Pathology, and Pharmacology.Depending on their specialty selection, both basic science and clinical training will be tailored as to the time spent in each areas.
Clinical training will also include virtual classes as well as rotations. The duration of these rotations and type of rotations are determined by the student’s elected specialty. These rotations include internal medicine, Neurology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Surgery.
We use online classes thru Youtube, Khan Academy, Open Yale Courses, Teachmeanatomy.info, Univ of Louisville Internal Medicine Lecture Series, and MIT open courseware.
The courses here are divided into sections outlined below:
1. Pre-medical courses
2. Basic Sciences
3. Clinical Sciences
Students will be assigned to local physicians for clinical training that would start from the first day of medical school. There will be a need to bring internet access to some of these areas and provide tablets to students and healthcare providers. We also anticipate a need for small payments to both medical students and local physicians as well.
TeachMeMedicine.Org 