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The Medical System in Ghana
Ghana is a developing country in West Africa with a population of about 25 million. Medical illnesses in Ghana overlap with those in developed countries, but infection, trauma, and women’s health problems are much more prominent. Medical practice in rural Africa faces extremely limited resources, a...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
YJBM
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4144286/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25191147 |
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author | Drislane, Frank W. Akpalu, Albert Wegdam, Harry H.J. |
author_facet | Drislane, Frank W. Akpalu, Albert Wegdam, Harry H.J. |
author_sort | Drislane, Frank W. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Ghana is a developing country in West Africa with a population of about 25 million. Medical illnesses in Ghana overlap with those in developed countries, but infection, trauma, and women’s health problems are much more prominent. Medical practice in rural Africa faces extremely limited resources, a multiplicity of languages (hundreds in Ghana), and presentation of severe illnesses at later stages than seen elsewhere. Despite these limitations, Ghana has established a relatively successful national medical insurance system, and the quality of medical practice is high, at least where it is available. Ghana also has a well-established and sophisticated administrative structure for the supervision of medical education and accreditation, but it has proven very difficult to extend medical training to rural areas, where health care facilities are particularly short of personnel. Physicians are sorely needed in rural areas, but there are few because of the working conditions and financial limitations. Hospital wards and clinics are crowded; time per patient is limited. This article details some of the differences between medical practice in Ghana and that in wealthier countries and how it functions with very limited resources. It also introduces the medical education and training system in Ghana. The following article describes an attempt to establish and maintain a residency training program in General Medicine in a rural area of Ghana. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4144286 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | YJBM |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-41442862014-09-04 The Medical System in Ghana Drislane, Frank W. Akpalu, Albert Wegdam, Harry H.J. Yale J Biol Med Focus: Global Health and Development Ghana is a developing country in West Africa with a population of about 25 million. Medical illnesses in Ghana overlap with those in developed countries, but infection, trauma, and women’s health problems are much more prominent. Medical practice in rural Africa faces extremely limited resources, a multiplicity of languages (hundreds in Ghana), and presentation of severe illnesses at later stages than seen elsewhere. Despite these limitations, Ghana has established a relatively successful national medical insurance system, and the quality of medical practice is high, at least where it is available. Ghana also has a well-established and sophisticated administrative structure for the supervision of medical education and accreditation, but it has proven very difficult to extend medical training to rural areas, where health care facilities are particularly short of personnel. Physicians are sorely needed in rural areas, but there are few because of the working conditions and financial limitations. Hospital wards and clinics are crowded; time per patient is limited. This article details some of the differences between medical practice in Ghana and that in wealthier countries and how it functions with very limited resources. It also introduces the medical education and training system in Ghana. The following article describes an attempt to establish and maintain a residency training program in General Medicine in a rural area of Ghana. YJBM 2014-09-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4144286/ /pubmed/25191147 Text en Copyright ©2014, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY-NC license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. |
spellingShingle | Focus: Global Health and Development Drislane, Frank W. Akpalu, Albert Wegdam, Harry H.J. The Medical System in Ghana |
title | The Medical System in Ghana |
title_full | The Medical System in Ghana |
title_fullStr | The Medical System in Ghana |
title_full_unstemmed | The Medical System in Ghana |
title_short | The Medical System in Ghana |
title_sort | medical system in ghana |
topic | Focus: Global Health and Development |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4144286/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25191147 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT drislanefrankw themedicalsysteminghana AT akpalualbert themedicalsysteminghana AT wegdamharryhj themedicalsysteminghana AT drislanefrankw medicalsysteminghana AT akpalualbert medicalsysteminghana AT wegdamharryhj medicalsysteminghana |