In Bhutan, the Royal Medical University of Bhutan (KGUMSB), the only national medical university in the country, plays a central role in health human resource development. KGUMSB mainly provides post-graduate training courses to train medical specialists for those who have obtained medical licenses through study abroad, and is also responsible for in-service training and physician internships. In-service training and physician internships are also offered. It is also responsible for pre- and post-graduate education in the fields of nursing and public health. Furthermore, we are aiming to establish Bhutan’s first medical school (pre-graduate doctor training course). However, the challenges include the lack of teaching skills of the faculty members responsible for training doctors, etc., the lack of educational facilities and equipment for the use of distance learning systems (e-learning), etc., the lack of faculty members’ knowledge of teaching methods and curriculum and materials development, and the lack of research skills of the faculty members who will be the implementers of the research. In addition, these universities do not have sufficient internal quality assurance systems in place to independently and autonomously inspect and evaluate the quality of their educational and research activities, the level of academic achievement, organizational management, and facilities, and to make improvements. In particular, the system for staff competency evaluation and development, as well as the university’s internal quality assurance policies, regulations, and responsibility structure are not clear, pointing to the weakness of the internal quality assurance system. In addition, based on the national policy of digitization, there is a need to improve the efficiency of university management through the use of information and communication technology.
This cooperation will strengthen the capacity of KGUMSB to provide medical education and health policy research in a sustainable manner by strengthening the capacity of the faculty, introducing innovative teaching methods, and enhancing the administrative capacity of the university at KGUMSB, thereby contributing to the improvement of the quality of medical education to ensure that health personnel are supplied to contribute to sustainable health service delivery in Bhutan. KGUMSB will contribute to improving the quality of medical education in Bhutan to ensure that the country is supplied with health personnel who can contribute to sustainable health service delivery.
© Source JICA