Intern

Closing date: 8 September 2006
We are seeking to appoint an intern who will be attached to the Research Programme for a period of one year.

Closing date: 12 May 2006

The Department of Public Health at the Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine is seeking to appoint a Course Administrator for a fixed term period of one (1) year, this is a full day position.

More than 70 percent of the medical students surveyed by their class representatives have said they would rather leave South Africa than face two years of internship after studying. A plan to double the one-year internship was endorsed in January by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and the health ministers of the nine provinces.The plan was devised by the Health Professions Council of South Africa, which determines the content of medical training. It would mean that, including the obligatory year of community service after internship, many students would have 10 years of training and service to complete before they were free to do as they chose. Salih Solomon, student representative of the fifth-year class at the University of Cape Town's Medical School, said a snap survey had found that between 70 percent and 75 percent of students in his year would seriously consider leaving the country rather than do the two-year internship.At the Free State University, the figure among fifth-year students was between 80 percent and 90 percent, said Karl le Roux, of the Junior Doctors'Association of South Africa (Judasa). At Natal University the figure was 92 percent of 196 fourth and fifth-year medical students, Le Roux said. Not just white students, but large numbers of black and coloured students are also thinking of leaving. The reality is probably that, if they had to do two years of internship, between 25 percent and 30 percent of the students would leave in 2005. But even this is a disaster for health in South Africa. Interns worked about 100 hours a week, Solomon said. The health department had reportedly proposed cutting their salaries by about R1 400 a month, Le Roux said, in which case interns would receive around R4 000 after tax. Objections to the plan were raised by students and junior doctors at a three-hour meeting last week between the health department and Judasa, the South African Medical Students Association, student representatives and divisions of the South African Medical Association. The concerns raised were that the health system could not adequately accommodate an extra 1 000 interns every year, that they would be paid less, and that more doctors would leave the country. Tshabalala-Msimang's spokesperson, Sibani Mngadi, said the department was considering the students' objections. The reason for the proposal to double the internship period was that interns were insufficiently trained when they entered community service, Mngadi said. We would like to make sure that people who work in our hospitals have enough experience to work independently. Community service is mostly in rural hospitals, he said. Judasa has proposed, instead, that junior doctors should be better trained within the current internship and community service system. Among other things, these doctors could all do their first six months' community service in a primary, rural or district hospital and their second six months in a secondary or tertiary hospital. A one-year internship period would become obligatory this year for clinical psychologists, radiographers, physiotherapists, dieticians, occupational and speech therapists and environmental health officers, Mngadi said. Nurses would have to do community service by 2007 - and we hope sooner -Mngadi said. The African National Congress resolved at its recent Stellenbosch conference that community service should be extended to other professions, including lawyers and teachers. ( Source: The Cape Times, 11 March 2003).

he trade union Solidarity has conditionally suspended legal action against the government aimed at preventing the introduction of an extra year of internship. This came after health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and the provincial health MECs agreed on Friday to support a decision by the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) to reduce the academic training by a year. The HPCSA earlier decided to double the existing one-year internship. After protests by medical students, mostly from the University of Pretoria, it decided that the academic training preceding the internship should be a minimum of five years. At present, students at most universities have a six-year course and then do a compulsory one-year internship. The new arrangement would become effective from 2005. Under the new dispensation the students would be paid for their two-year internship, the health department said. Solidarity, which supported the Pretoria students, said on Monday its lawyers had already drawn up papers to serve on the government for court action against the extension of the internship when the decision about the shorter academic training was made. In light of the decision, it suspended its court action pending the response of the government on two issues. The students wanted to know how the decision would affect students already busy with their courses and whether they would have to do two years' internship in addition to a six-year academic course. They also needed clarity on the remuneration to be paid. Depending on the answers to these questions, Solidarity would decide whether or not to go ahead with its court action, spokesman Dirk Hermann said.( Source: SAPA:, 9 December 2002).

The internship programme is one of the skills development initiatives developed by the research programme of the Health Systems Trust (HST). Since it was founded in 1992, HST has been concerned with the need to develop research and planning skills for health care delivery. The internship programme aims to develop a pool of health systems re-search skills in South Africa by attaching novice researchers to institutions with established research record.