Distance assisted training for nuclear medicine technologists in anglophone sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Five of the seventeen countries with Nuclear Medicine facilities in Africa have training programmes for Nuclear Medicine Technologists (NMT's). Four of the countries are in Northern Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt) and only one in Southern Africa (South Africa). The training programmes vary from country to country and therefore there is no common basis to facilitate regional co-operation. Nuclear Medicine Technologists working in sub-Saharan countries do not have formal training in Nuclear Medicine and have mostly been recruited from related fields of Radiological Technology. A number of NMT's in these centres have enjoyed International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) fellowship training in other countries or have attended regional training courses. Knowledge and skills, learned in well established Nuclear Medicine departments with supportive infrastructure, are on the whole difficult to transfer to a local situation without such support. Because of the nature of the specialty the numbers required for training are small and it would therefore not be cost-effective for Higher Education Institutions in these countries to set up training programmes. There is also a lack of expertise in this field in Africa. Training was initially supported outside the countries with loss of personnel to the departments and in many instances loss of manpower as these trainees leave their countries and do not return. Under an IAEA/African Regional Co-operative Agreement (AFRA) project; "Establishing a Regional Capability in Nuclear Medicine", the following related to training of NMT's:

1. Harmonisation of training programmes for Nuclear Medicine Technologists in AFRA countries 2. Assess the feasibility of running a Distance Assisted Training (DAT) programme for Nuclear Medicine Technologists It was hoped that in this way, full use could be made of available expertise and facilities in the region, the cost of training could be reduced and the standard of patient health care improved.