KCMC Trainees First to Take Medical Board Exam in Africa

students take exam

KCMC medical students made history as the first trainees to officially take the US examination in Africa.

Published October 11, 2011, last updated on June 3, 2020 under Education News

Nearly 200 medical students at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC) in Tanzania sat for the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) examination this summer. It was the first time the officially-sanctioned test had been given on the African continent.

KCMC administered the test as part of the $10 million Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) grant awarded to KCMC and the Duke Global Health Institute in 2010. The grant expands the decades-long partnership between Duke and KCMC by training a new generation of Tanzanian physicians with the knowledge and tools to become their country’s leaders in academics, research and policy.

Lucy Killewo, KCMC learning management system specialist, and KCMC Dean Kien Mteta led efforts to administer the medical examination to 177 Tanzanian medical students this August. Over two sessions, second-year KCMC medical students were tested on their knowledge of basic sciences, including anatomy and embryology, and fifth-year medical students were tested on internal medicine principles.

The test was given to gauge the knowledge of KCMC medical students against the internationally-recognized exam, which is required for practicing medicine in the U.S.  As part of MEPI, leaders at KCMC and DGHI are working together to strengthen the medical education curriculum, tailored to health priorities in Africa.

“What we want to be able to do is measure the success of MEPI interventions over time, so this establishes a baseline for us to work from,” said John Bartlett, DGHI associate director for research and co-principal investigator of the grant. “Using this standardized test is one way in which we’ll hopefully see improvements in scores over time, and test results will allow us to guide specific interventions in curricular areas that need improvement.”

If students are consistently struggling in a particular subject area of the NBME exam, KCMC and DGHI project leaders are ready to examine the curriculum content, how it’s being taught, how the students are being tested on it, and then determine ways in which the curriculum can be strengthened in a meaningful way to address the knowledge gap.

“It’s really impressive that students are so motivated that they are willing to take this very challenging examination,” said Bartlett. “First, it’s a capacity building exercise, and second, the students have a desire to continuously improve their performance. I think it’s quite noble that they’ve taken such a mature attitude towards it.”

The exam was administered over the internet, a large feat for a university in a low-resource setting where power failures are common. Thanks to the MEPI award, KCMC’s medical education building now has a new technology infrastructure to allow for high-speed internet access, AV-equipped classrooms with videoconference capabilities, computer lab and medical education laboratory space.

Learn more about the MEPI award here.

It’s really impressive that students are so motivated that they are willing to take this very challenging examination.

John Bartlett

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