Thirteen College of Surgeons of East & Central Africa (COSECSA) and internship training institutions were inspected by the Council in the third quarter of the 2021-2022 financial year. Out of these, eleven were approved. The inspections that took place between 2nd and 5th March, 2022. This is in line with the Council’s mandate to regulate training of all medical and dental practitioners and community oral health officers.
Some of the institutions approved as training sites for COSECSA orthopaedic and trauma surgery included the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital, Tenwek Mission Hospital, Kisii County Referral Hospital, AIC Kijabe Mission Hospital, PCEA Kikuyu Hospital, Defence Forces Memorial Hospital and Kenyatta National Hospital among others. Lodwar County Referral Hospital was also evaluated for readiness for accreditation as an Internship Training Centre.
Postgraduate training by COSECSA is offered under a collegiate system which involves a training programme with a common examination offered through a number of accredited constituent training sites. The collegiate system of training under COSECSA is aimed at increasing the number of surgeons in the country and consequently enhancing Universal Healthcare Coverage by having the residents distributed across the country during their training. This improves the human resource capacities of the counties as the specialists are trained on site and not in centralized stations as is the case with university training.
An added advantage of the collegiate training arrangement is that it provides flexible training program in terms of location and continued employment for the residents providing even more incentive for practitioners to seek specialty training.