Dubai: The number of residency doctors training at Dubai Health Authority (DHA) facilities has doubled in the last seven years, the authority revealed on Tuesday.
The DHA received 200 applicants and accepted 48 residency doctors in 2010. This number doubled in 2017, totalling the number of applicants received last year to 451, out of which 80 were accepted.
Residency doctors are recruited based on the Multiple-Mini Interview (MMI) system, which consists of eight stations, each consisting of eight-minute structured interview scenarios.
The department of Medical Education and Research Department has been implementing the MMI system since 2012, in collaboration with McMaster University in Canada.
Once accepted, residency doctors will be able to get hands-on experience across DHA facilities that include: Dubai Hospital, Latifa Hospital and Rashid Hospital as well as the DHA’s seven specialised centres and 12 primary health care centres.
The DHA offers 16 specialities for the residency programme that include: emergency medicine, family medicine, general surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics and trauma, paediatrics, psychiatry, radiology, neurology, neurosurgery, dentistry and ENT.
The DHA’s residency programme has received a number of regional and international accreditations from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the German Board and the Saudi Commission for Health Specialities, to name a few.
To enrich the residency programme, DHA ensures the provision of academic day activities that include case-based discussions, random case analysis, prescribing, etc.
Residency doctors can also take advantage of the authority’s electronic library to access 16.3 million articles, 4.7 million images and videos, 176,091 e-books, 154,100 Exams, as well has thousands of journals and databases.
The e-library received around 1.5 million visits and downloads last year. The database can be used to support the residency doctors’ researches. A total of 190 resident research proposals were approved.
They tackled various topics that include neurology (3), psychiatry (7), radiology (8), surgery (9), obstetrics and gynaecology (20), emergency (16), internal medicine (38), family medicine (56) and paediatrics (33). A number of DHA’s residency doctors won the Medical Research Award for the resident category.
The authority also provides residency doctors with an opportunity to attend medical courses, conferences and awareness health campaigns on polio, measles, breast cancer, and smoking cessation campaigns to name a few.
Upon the completion of the programme, the residency doctors will be assessed through a mid- and end-of-year assessment, Saudi Board EOY exam, American Board in-training examination and Arab Board exam. to name a few.
