This group is led by Myanmar Medical Association ex-chair Professor Rai Mra and Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) international faculty members. The RCGP and the Myanmar GP Society continue to work together towards achieving our long-term objective of strengthening General Practice in Myanmar and realising the benefits that this will bring. With the Covid-19 Crisis, being not able to travel to Myanmar, the RCGP Myanmar Volunteers have been providing workshops remotely through Zoom.
Since August 2020, 18 RCGP Volunteers, most with education experience as GP trainers, program directors and appraisers have been working with 6 groups of Myanmar GPs in 4 localities (Mandalay, Meiktila, Toungoo and Pathein) in Myanmar. In Mandalay and Meiktila, 40 Myanmar GPs who have previously participated in the 2018 QI Project are involved in the Quality Champions Training Programme. 28 new Myanmar GPs in Mandalay, Toungoo and Pathein are going through the 6 months Introductory Quality Improvement Training programme.
Following an initial learning need assessment for each group of GPs, a Quality Improvement Training program of monthly seminars for 6 months was put together.
The higher-level QI Champions Training program for Myanmar GPs in Mandalay and Meiktila, include topics such as Improving Outcomes in Chronic Disease Management through Patient Centred Care that included skills to carry out patient centred consultations and producing patient information leaflets. Leadership and Team working skills for the local GPs to be able to work together on Quality Improvement Projects. The program will also provide GPs with the necessary skills to conduct Patient Surveys in order to obtain feedback from patients on the care provided.
The introduction to Quality Improvement Training program for GPs will include topics such as improving medical record, audit of chronic disease, infection control and waste disposal, learning from case reviews and significant events and improving consultation skills.
Each group of Myanmar GPs and the 3 RCGP Trainers meet monthly for 2 hours via Zoom. The 2-hour seminars included presentation from both RCGP Trainers and Myanmar GPs with a fair amount of facilitated small group work. In addition, there is “Homework” assigned to the groups in between the meetings, such as producing audits, patient information leaflets or preparing presentation for the next session.
After every seminar, feedback is obtained through online surveys tools such as Mentimeter. These feedbacks are useful to the RCGP Trainers to adapt and make changes to the teaching programme.
In addition, we are strengthening remote working with a wider group of GPs in Myanmar through our Facebook site, Myanmar GP Society Quality improvement Group/RCGP Supported, which has over 500 members. At the majority of our posting/discussion at present are on Covid-19 related topics.
To communicate with the wider GP community in Myanmar, the Myanmar GP Society and the RCGP have also been organising large webinars accessible by all GP in Myanmar. The discussion forums have included timely topics such as “Ethical issues in the Covid Pandemic” and “Proper use of PPE”.