Project Malawi Retraining

Retraining of colleges in Malawi.

Introduction

Many 'developing countries' do not know the system of postgraduate education. Mostly because there isn't any money to finance retraining but often the structure in which retraining can be realised simply isn't developed.

Many Dutch dentists set out on a journey regularly to work abroad for a shorter or longer period of time and talk with colleges about dental issues.

In this way both parties learn a lot from each other and above all about each other. Dentistry acts as a binding factor.

The same goes for a group of Dutch dentists that organised a post-graduate training and retraining for colleges in Malawi. In 2001 they went for the second time.

They ended this year's project by presenting their report (Continuous Education, the workshop of 2001) to the president of the Dutch Dental Association (NMT), Heert Zijlstra and to the president of Dental Health International Nederland (DHIN), Henk van den Hul.

The project

After a year of preparation one dental technician, one dental surgeon and five dentists left for Malawi in east Africa to teach a wide variety of subjects in Lilongwe. Invited by the Dental Association of Malawi (DAM) a four day seminar was organised.

The topics of the seminar varied from esthetic dentistry to simple oral surgery, from oral pathology to cariology and endodontics, from crowns and bridges to state of the art restorative dentistry. All subjects were discussed in lectures and deepened in table clinics.

During the clinics intensive comradely consultations took place, one of the main aims of this project. It's evident that not only the lecturers were enthousiastic, but the colleges from Malawi as well. The latter demanded the lecturers to return in two years time to redo this course.

Discussion

In 1997 was the first time that postgraduate education and retraining took place in this way.

This initiative, of which the lecturers bore the cost themselves was considered to be a pilot project. After a thorough evaluation it was decided to give this kind of foreign aid some backbone and structure. Backbone financialy and structure by giving it a permanent character.

This was done by searching for external grants so that the project would not only depend on the willingness of the participating lecturers, but could be continued independent of the people who started this kind of co-operation.

This second time the project was supported by NMT and DHIN.

DHIN not only supported the project financially, but also rendered mental and material support. Even ESPE, Kerr and Isodent offered a contribution.

The dental department of the University of Amsterdam (ACTA) represented by professor Wesselink fine-tuned the endodontics course.

CDE-Malawi (Continuous Dental Education - Malawi) wants to thank all people who contributed to the succes of the project.

In 2003 we will redo this course.

Sytse Fluitsma (CDE-Malawi)