de Souza Institute provides oncology continuing education to nurses in Malawi
de Souza Institute offers over 30 online courses covering core competencies in oncology and/or palliative care. These de Souza courses are standardized and updated annually to reflect the latest clinical practice guidelines. The breadth and range of topics covered by our courses allow health care organizations nationally and internationally to leverage de Souza education and select courses that are most relevant to their organization’s priorities.
This year, seven registered nurses from the East African country of Malawi participated in the Standardized Chemotherapy and Biotherapy course. This course requires 35 hours of active learning including 16 online modules and a half-day in-person workshop for knowledge consolidation. de Souza educator, Ms. Komal Patel led the workshop for Malawi nurses to help them consolidate their learning in administrating and safe-handling of chemotherapy and biotherapy treatments. Moving forward, Ms. Patel will support Malawi nurses with advanced knowledge in chemotherapy and biotherapy to become regional facilitators who will lead local workshops and mentor clinicians in day-to-day practice.
“We have learned a great deal from delivering continuing education to busy clinicians across Canada and will leverage our experiences to bring standardized workforce training in oncology to health care professionals in developing countries. Given the limited resources, online training combined with a local workshop can be a cost effective way to deliver continuing education to clinicians and support high-quality cancer care in many parts of the world” said Komal.
Malawi is the first African country to collaborate with de Souza Institute in continuing medical education. The nurses came from three hospitals: Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre Adventist Hospital and Mwaiwathu Hospital, where residents of Malawi receive cancer care. We anticipate more clinicians from Malawi in de Souza online learning in the coming years and the Institute will continue to support them through high-quality standardized education.