Radical reform of the undergraduate medical education program in a developing country: the Egyptian experience

Medical educators are in a continuous quest to close the gap between the needs of medical practice and the rising expectations of the communities in their countries. During the past two decades, competency-based medical education has been evolving as an appealing strategy to close this gap. In 2017, the Egyptian medical education authorities mandated all medical schools to change their curricula to comply with revised national academic reference standards, which changed from outcome-based to competency-based. In parallel, they also changed the timeline of all medical programs for six years of studentship and one-year internship to five years and two years, respectively. This substantial reform involved the assessment of the existing situation, an awareness campaign for the proposed changes and an extensive national faculty development program. Monitoring the implementation of this substantial reform was performed through surveys, field visits and meetings with students, teaching staff and program directors. In addition to the expected challenges, the COVID-19-associated restrictions presented a significant further challenge during the implementation of this reform. This article presents the rationale for and steps of this reform, the challenges faced and how they were addressed.