The program began at Hue city College of Medicine and Pharmacy and then expanded to seven other schools nationwide, said organizers of the workshop in the central town of Hoi An.

The project has also equipped 11 study labs, opened training rooms at six hospitals, and developed study guides, they said.

The standardized 84-lesson reproductive health care curriculum developed by the project is now being used to teach more than 12,000 students at eight medical universities throughout the country.

New methods, environment

For teachers, the project has introduced new methodologies.

“I have taken on a more active role in teaching [since attending the program],” said a faculty member at the Hue College of Medicine and Pharmacy as quoted in the press release by Pathfinder International, a US-based healthcare NGO that organized the project.

For the students, the project has created a new learning environment.

“We have more responsibility here and have to participate personally,” the press release quoted a student practicing at Hai Lang District Health Center as saying.

Speaking at the Final Dissemination Workshop, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien encouraged educators to expand the training models to other fields of medical education and to other universities throughout the country.

With the cooperation of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education and Training, the project has received technical support from JHPIEGO, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, University of California, and Pathfinder.

Reported by Van Khoa