Partnerships creating postgraduate family medicine in Kenya

Culminating a decade-long process, the first family medicine residency program in Kenya, among the first in Africa outside Nigeria and South Africa, was launched in 2005. Three diverse stakeholders are collaborating in their individual and joint missions: Moi University Faculty of Health Sciences (MUFHS), educating medical students to serve rural Kenyans; the Institute of Family Medicine (Infa-Med), a church hospital-based non-governmental organization aiming to introduce family medicine in Kenya; and the Ministry of Health (MoH), working to create an efficient government health care workforce for 32 million Kenyans. MUFHS brings central facilities, enthusiastic academic leadership, and long-term vision. Infa-Med contributes start-up resources, expatriate family medicine faculty, and well-established hospitals for training. MoH is giving political support to the new specialty as well as scholarships to MoH medical officers entering the 3-year residency program leading to the degree of Master of Medicine in Family Health. Among the lessons learned through this process are the importance of melding the missions of all partners, of integrating clinical with community care of the underserved, and of deriving curriculum from African and international evidence on how to marshal available resources to meet Kenya's national needs. Opportunities continue for internal and international collaboration.