ESPE Abstracts

Background: During the 1980s there were no officially accredited training programmes for subspecialty training in South Africa. Accordingly, doctors with accreditation from other countries, or with extensive experience in the subspecialty, were recognised as subspecialists, based on peer review.

Objective and hypotheses: The objective of this poster was to document the development of a new Paediatric Endocrinology programme in a previously disadvantaged medical school.

Method: In preparation for the HPCSA inspection (Health Professions Council of South Africa) scheduled for early 2012, a new Paediatric Endocrinology programme was developed at our university.

Results: The Department of Paediatrics and Child Health of the MEDUNSA campus of the University of Limpopo planned a new training programme for a Paediatric Endocrinology fellow, and applied to the HPCSA for accreditation. The programme outline is as follows: the fellow will be available for endocrine and metabolic consultations during the week, and will be directly involved with all in-patient admissions. The outpatient clinic dealing with sufficient patients for training will be handled by the fellow under supervision. During the weekly metabolic ward round patients in the wards with metabolic problems will be identified, investigated and managed by the Endocrinology fellow. A weekly postgraduate discussion will be jointly held with the Department of Chemical Pathology. A Paediatric Endocrinology journal club will alternate with endocrinology case discussions between the endocrinologists and the chemical pathologists every second week.

Conclusion: The HPCSA panel indicated that the application was meritorious. Following further discussions, we re-submitted our application. This was successful, and we started training a fellow in January 2014. We are particularly proud of this unit, as we are only the third Paediatric Endocrinology Unit (after the Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand) to be accredited in South Africa.

Abstract withdrawn.