An innovative virtual platform to support medical postgraduate fellowship, subspecialist and diploma candidates as they prepare for their examinations to become medical professionals, has been launched by The Colleges of Medicine of South Africa, in partnership with Life Healthcare.

The new platform, Learn@CMSA will support the training of diploma graduates as well as those candidates who wish to become medical specialists in South Africa with the aim of promoting the highest degree of skill and efficiency in medical and dental practice, and ultimately help to improve the health of all South Africans.

Learn@CMSA is the result of a collaboration between The Colleges of Medicine of South Africa (CMSA) and the South African Committee of Deans (SACOMD) and is supported by Life Healthcare.

The platform, still in development, will allow candidates to access educational material in preparation for their examinations. Upon completion of the requisite training, and submission of a Master of Medicine (MMed) dissertation, graduates are eligible for registration as specialists with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA).

“The platform is a significant achievement for Life Healthcare,” says Craig Koekemoer, Chief Operations Officer at Life Healthcare. “We see it as an investment in the development of medical knowledge among our specialists and doctors, at the critical stage where specialists launch their careers. Through our exclusive sponsorship of Learn@CMSA, Life Healthcare is able to advance the way we develop the pipeline of diplomates, specialists and subspecialists,” said Koekemoer.

Koekemoer went on to say that the goal of the new platform is to provide medical and dental candidates access to content to help them prepare for the examinations in their respective Colleges.

The platform includes a research module curated to offer a guide for fellowship candidates conducting their research dissertations.

The vision for the new platform is to make a wider-reaching impact and advance equity across all specialist training platforms (in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa) by empowering doctors with training support and educational content to improve exam readiness.

“Equity in terms of access to learning resources remains a challenge in a country such as ours, with such diversity in training platforms,” says Prof. Dean Gopalan, Chairperson of the CMSA Education Committee. “To this end, the development of a common e-learning platform under the auspices of the CMSA is vital. We could not have done this without the immense support of Life Healthcare.”

Prof Johan Fagan, President of the CMSA thanked Life Healthcare for its support over many years in helping the CMSA run high-quality specialist examinations that represent international best practice.

“Additional support is now being employed to create an e-learning education platform for exam candidates to access preparatory educational material and to advance equity across all South African training platforms,” he said. “Such support is key to the CMSA maintaining academic standards of our diplomates, specialists and subspecialists through excellence in education and assessment.”

The Colleges of Medicine of South Africa (CMSA) conducts all diploma, specialist and subspecialist examinations in South Africa. It is now expanding its role to include online preparatory educational support, and has launched a peer-reviewed medical and dental journal, the Journal of the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa (JCMSA) to share research that has historically been costly for candidates to publish themselves.

The new educational platform comprises a virtual library which will cater for diploma, specialist and subspecialist medical disciplines and is the product of two years of intensive development by the CMSA, with collaborative support from Life Healthcare. Visit Learn@CMSA.