Open Forum Community-oriented primary care footprinting: An undergraduate programme experience

Anastasia E. Ugwuanyi

About the author(s) Anastasia E. Ugwuanyi, Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

The Nelson Mandela Fidel Castro (NMFC) programme, a government initiative to address healthcare inequities in South Africa, focuses on the training of indigenous students to become competent healthcare practitioners. A collaboration combining training in a Cuban primary care, preventative system with integration in a South African institution within a quadruple disease burdened healthcare system. This article reflects on integration experience at the University of Witwatersrand, a programme pedagogically positioned within a workplace-based, situated learning framework. Since 2022, community-oriented primary care (COPC) projects became part of the integrated primary care and family medicine learning objectives. This article summarises the experience of the 2021–2022 cohort and calls for the strengthening of undergraduate medical education curricula with learning objectives reflective of social accountability.

Contribution: This article spotlights work in the undergraduate space around teaching and experiential learning of community-oriented primary care in line with the journal’s scope.

community-oriented primary care project; medical education, experiential learning; social accountability; Nelson Mandela Fidel Castro programme; University of the Witwatersrand

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