Latest update May 10th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 27, 2015 News
Even as he lauded the expertise of the pathologists within the public health sector, Minister of Public Health, Dr George Norton, is currently considering ways to have newly trained doctors venture into the field of pathology.
Over the years very few doctors have delved into the field of pathology. Currently the public health sector has about three experienced pathologists whose efforts are complemented by at least two Cuban doctors.
But according to Minister Norton, “The doctors we have in pathology are so good at what they do because they have been in the lab system before they became physicians. So the transition would have been easy for them. They would have been doing histology and the like practically on a daily basis.”
Turning his attention to the state of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation mortuary, which is a crucial training ground for pathologists, Dr Norton shared his conviction that there is need for a change to that facility.
“We have got to bulldoze that so called morgue and build something that is modern,” said Minister Norton.
He asserted that the facility is not only an eye sore but “it’s a turn off” that is perhaps preventing many aspiring doctors from entering the field of pathology. “It doesn’t have to be smelly, it doesn’t have to be wet, it doesn’t have to be hot…We have got to get away from this whole idea that we are hearing about, rats eating the corpses and so on,” said the Minister. “Many medical students have had a change of heart about the field of pathology after visiting the morgue.”
He also claimed to have knowledge that even work study students are dissuaded from the medical field after paying a visit to the facility. “They want to do medicine yes, but they change their minds…the place is not conducive to encouraging anybody to be in that area we have got to change that,” asserted the Public Health Minister.
However, there is a strategic method that can be used to encourage graduates of Medicine to gravitate to the field of pathology. Minister Norton is currently considering the possibility of a policy change that could see recently trained doctors being eligible for post graduate training well before their five-year contractual obligation to government has expired.
“The policy of having somebody only available for post graduate studies after they have completed five years of contractual obligations with the Government of Guyana pertaining to their training, has to be something of the past…We have got to eliminate that,” asserted the Minister.
He disclosed that he has had interviews with overseas-based professors who have advised that “from internship we should start gearing our GMOs (General Medical Officers) to follow the line of their specialities by the time they finish their internship rotation.”
“If we can reduce that obligation of having to complete that five years, we think that persons will opt for these specialities if we offer it to them,” said the Minister as he made reference to the fields of pathology, psychiatry, radiology and physical medicine as fields with few specialists.
But measures are actively apace to address the shortcomings. Just recently one doctor commenced post graduate training in child psychiatry, said Dr Norton.
He related that a Master’s in Psychiatry programme is set to commence shortly. Already eight doctors have been identified for that programme which will be conducted through the University of Guyana’s collaboration with the GPHC.
The programme, which will be gaining support from overseas universities, will be managed by GPHC’s Head of Psychiatry, Dr Bhiro Harry.
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