Foreign medical graduates exonerated

THE pre-internship examination that foreign-trained medical graduates were subjected to last November has been found to be too difficult, unnecessary and out of context by experts.

The experts, Dr Shonaq MacKenzie, Dr Rodney Lichtman and Dr Laimi Ashipala were appointed on an independent examination evaluation panel on 4 June 2019, and were to assist in deciding whether the examinations were fair.

The evaluations looked at the Health Professions Council of Namibia (HPCNA)’s pre-internship examination paper and the University of Namibia’s final-year medical students’ examination papers for last November.

The students who challenged the HPCNA include Natalia Iileka, Elizabeth Kambonde, Ndeshipanda Shatona and Kolin Kazeundja, amongst others. These graduates are some of the foreign-trained medical students who studied in China, the Ukraine, Algeria, Cuba and South Africa, who were reported to have failed the examinations.

Although doctors MacKenzie and Ashipala were unreachable, Lichtman confirmed to The Namibian yesterday that they were all chosen to the panel, and they had given their opinions to the best of their abilities. Documents seen by The Namibian show that MacKenzie, who made her evaluation on 10 June 2019, found that the HPCNA’s November 2018 examination was not equivalent to Unam’s final examination.

“I feel the focus and mix of questions is significantly different from the Unam paper, and puts the HPCNA candidates at a disadvantage,” said MacKenzie.

Lichtman stated in his evaluation, dated 17 June 2019, that most of the questions were too difficult, and also inappropriate for final-year students planning to be general practitioners.

“It appears the majority of questions are cut-and-paste questions that come off the internet, and do not represent medical practice and clinical situations in Namibia,” said Lichtman.

On 12 June 2019, Ashipala also evaluated the examination papers, and concluded that the time given to the foreign-trained medical students was less than that given to those who wrote the Unam examination paper.

“The content of both sets of question papers is mostly of general medicine knowledge, and not common cases that graduates will encounter during practice, for example when one is on call,” she said.

Cornelius Weyulu, the registrar of the HPCNA, yesterday confirmed that the ruling on the students’ appeal is yet to be made, but refrained from commenting further.

“The appeal by the medical graduates has not been finalised by the appeals committee, and the Medical and Dental Council of Namibia is a party to the proceedings as one of the respondents. We cannot, therefore, comment on the matter that is still yet to be considered and finalised by a competent tribunal,” he noted.