Ministry of Health develops basic competency standards for general practitioners

On November 24, the Department of Science, Technology and Training (Ministry of Health) held a workshop to provide comments on the draft "Basic competency standards for general practitioners" with the participation of representatives from a number of health departments, hospitals, and medical universities nationwide.

Illustrative photo. (Source: VNA)

According to Deputy Minister of Health Le Quang Cuong, realizing the importance of training medical human resources, the Ministry of Health has directed the development of Basic Competency Standards for Vietnamese General Practitioners with the participation of experts in the fields of training, recruitment, managers, professionals...

During the development process, the drafting committee consulted the medical competency standards of countries in the region and around the world to adjust them to suit the actual situation in Vietnam.

Therefore, the workshop was organized to receive comments from delegates to promulgate basic competency standards for general practitioners. After having the standards, schools need to develop training content and prepare equipment to train according to the standards.

Professor Nguyen Cong Khan, Director of the Department of Science, Technology and Training, said that in Vietnam, there are currently two parallel training programs for general practitioners. The first type is a 6-year training program for high school graduates who achieve admission scores in the national university entrance exam organized by the Ministry of Education and Training.

However, there is currently a significant difference in admission scores between schools. The second type is a 4-year training program for those who have a medical degree and have worked in the health system.

Candidates for this training program are recruited through a separate exam and are considered to be of much lower quality than doctors who graduate from the 6-year training program. However, they still undertake the same tasks as general practitioners who have been trained for 6 years in hospitals...

Professor Nguyen Cong Khan emphasized that the development and promulgation of Basic Competency Standards for General Practitioners helps to strengthen the supervision of people, patients, and the community on the implementation of the school's commitments to society on training quality; at the same time, it is the basis for developing output standards, determining appropriate programs, methods, and learning content for the training program for general practitioners; linking training content with the actual socio-economic situation of the country...

Accordingly, the Basic Competency Standards for General Practitioners in Vietnam are structured according to the common model of doctors in the Asia-Pacific and ASEAN regions to meet the requirements of the region as well as to facilitate comparison with the competency standards of doctors in other countries.

The document on Basic Competency Standards for General Practitioners is divided into 4 areas including 22 standards and 65 criteria. Each area represents a basic function of a general practitioner, including 4 areas: professional practice capacity, medical knowledge application capacity, patient care capacity and communication and collaboration capacity.

At the workshop, delegates discussed and contributed ideas focusing on the following contents: Communication skills; scientific research, application of medical knowledge, diagnosis and treatment decision-making of Vietnamese general practitioners./.

According to Vietnam+