Physician

Over the last decade numerous reproductive health training initiatives have evolved in South Africa, yet there is relatively little communication and co-ordination between these respective initiatives.

This directory aims to provide a comprehensive resource of training initiatives relating to reproductive health that are currently being offered throughout South Africa. The directory will thus serve to:

• Be a reference point for what reproductive health training is available in the country.
• Advertise the services of respective training providers at a government, non-government and academic level and
• Facilitate networking between respective sectors and institutions.

The Health Systems Trust has a commitment to encourage collaboration between respective training providers and minimizing the duplication of work that is available. The production of the directory has been focused on making reproductive health training accessible to as many health care providers and communities as possible by providing the relevant information whilst advertising the wealth of training offered by respective organizations and institutions in the fields of reproductive health.

Women are numerically dominant in virtually all health care disciplines except the medical profession. This anomaly is rooted in developments in Western medicine during the 16th and 17th centuries when knowledge of anatomy, physiology and the causes of diseases regained a scientific and theoretical base after the hiatus of the medieval period. Medical training was then established in the universities and the role of wise women and female healers was increasingly discredited and relegated to the treatment of women and those who could not afford the care of learned male physicians.