In order to truly improve healthcare in Ghana over the long term, it is essential to provide increased advanced training opportunities for qualified Ghanaian healthcare providers. Therefore, continuing medical education will constitute the core component of the HopeXchange Medical Center’s strategic plan.  

The Center will provide physicians from Ghana and neighboring countries the opportunity to expand their knowledge and skills in a variety of medical specialties by attending intensive, hands-on multidisciplinary training courses, utilizing the state of the art clinical resources and advanced technologies available at the HopeXchange Medical Center.

Courses will be structured in multiple one or two week training modules, which will allow trainees to first, observe and learn, and then directly treat patients while assisted by a member of the faculty.

The training curriculum will include:

• educational lectures,
• laboratory work
• examination and discussion of complex cases
• hands-on workshops
• outreach sessions to rural communities

Live video feeds from a specially equipped operating theatre at the Center will provide real-time interaction between the course attendees and the faculty during surgical procedures.

The curricula of each course is being developed as a joint educational effort of local and international experts and institutions.  HopeXchange is currently working closely with the representatives from the following organizations to design the specific sub-specialty training curricula for each of the Center’s areas of clinical interest:

• Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons
• Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra
• Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi
• University of Innsbruck Medical Center/TILAK
• Catholic University of Rome Medical Center
• University of Washington
• Breast Health Global Initiative
• Susan G. Komen for the Cure
• Operation Smile

The training courses will be accredited for CME by the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, which will issue a Fellowship certificate to physicians who successfully complete all required training modules.
 
Intensive, hands-on, one-week training courses, providing CME credit, will also be conducted for nurses, midwives and other healthcare professionals  

Special “Learning Laboratories” will be developed at the Center to facilitate the exchange of best practices and shared learning between Ghanaian healthcare professionals and visiting African and international experts.  In addition to developing content for the Center’s education and training programs, the Learning Laboratories will analyze major barriers to access and delivery of healthcare in Ghana and other limited resource settings in Africa, and identify innovative strategies of intervention.