Strengthening Health Professions: Faculty Development Initiatives in Eastern, Southern and Western Africa (ESWA)

May 2025

To provide high-quality care for patients, the global health workforce requires training from exceptional educators, making medical and health professions education critical. While faculty development and institutional support in this field is growing across Eastern, Southern and Western Africa (ESWA), previous studies have focused on a small number of schools or those with niche units. One study from the Robert J. Havey, MD Institute for Global Health’s Center for Global Health Education aims to fill this research gap by expanding the scope to include all relevant institutions across ESWA. 

The Scoping Current Opportunities for Health Professions Education (SCOHPE) project supports faculty development in health professions education (HPE) by assessing the current landscape of health professions education. 

Conducting the research is a team that includes experts involved in the previous studies, Center for Global Health Education staff and 10 research team leads from across the region. They administered surveys to the department heads of 32 institutions and completed 30 interviews with health professions education leaders at 29 institutions across 10 countries. 

Ashti Doobay-Persaud, MD, co-director of the Center for Global Health Education, is principal investigator on the project. 

“We hope to share information, strategies and lessons learned to support the establishment and strengthening of these units across the region. We have presented our work at the 2024 AFREhealth Symposium with many team leads and recently presented in Stellenbosch, South Africa at the Stellenbosch University/Northwestern University Global Health Knowledge Hub (SU/NU Hub) meeting and have had our work accepted to present at both the International Association for Health Professions Education (AMEE) and the 2025 AFREhealth Symposium,” Doobay-Persaud said. 

Working alongside Doobay-Persaud are senior research advisors Elsie Kiguli-Malwadde, MBChB, MMed, MHPE, former president of AFREHealth, and Susan van Schalkwyk, MPhil, PhD,  professor emeritus in health professions education at Stellenbosch University and executive head of the Department of Health Professions Education (DHPE).  

Van Schalkwyk plays a vital role in the growth of the HPE field both within South Africa and globally and was one a featured keynote speakers at this year’s Global Health Education Day held on Wednesday, May 14 in the Lurie Medical Research Center presenting What Knowledge Matters?: Considerations for Global Health Scholarship. In addition, Megan L. Schultz, MD, MA, associate professor of pediatrics, director of global child health and co-director of the global health scholarly concentration at the Medical College of Wisconsin, presented the keynote Incorporating Global Health into Your Career in an Ethical, Sustainable, Anticolonial Way. The Center for Global Health Education hosts Global Health Education Day annually to feature global health experts and provide a venue for students, trainees, faculty and staff within the field to share their work. 

Sarah Welch, MPH, director of evaluation research at the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics, leads the project research team which includes Center for Global Health Education faculty and students as well as Faith Nawagi, PhD, African representative for the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER); Anthea Hansen, PhD, lecturer at the Department for Health Professions Education at Stellenbosch University; and Veena Singaram, PhD, academic leader of research in the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Kwazulu-Natal.

The research team leads are from across the ESWA regions including Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Rwanda and Ghana. The team leads are all junior faculty from regional medical schools and are working in the field of medical/health professions education. 

“The need for this work was initiated by our partners at Maseno University (MU) who are ready to start a department in health professions education and are looking for guidelines and recommendations,” Doobay-Persaud shared.  

“We hope that our findings will provide the leadership at MU and others in the region with some guidance for developing their programs and departments,” Doobay-Persaud said. 

This project aligns with the Center for Global Health Education’s broader mission to enhance health education and develop a skilled global health workforce. As one of the first centers dedicated entirely to global health education, the Center for Global Health Education provides essential resources, research opportunities and innovative projects to advance health professions education. Through Scoping Current Opportunities for Health Professions Education (SCOHPE), the Center for Global Health Education can continue its ongoing goals to expand other institutions’ health professions education units. 

The project is supported by the Havey Institute for Global Health Catalyzer Award Fund.

Ashti Doobay-Persaud, MD is a member of the Robert J. Havey, MD Institute for Global Health, Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS) and Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM). 

To learn more about the Center for Global Health Education, visit their website. 

For details on events, news and funding opportunities, sign up for the Havey Institute for Global Health newsletter.