Global Emergency Medicine Programmes

Ethiopia

Emergency Medicine has been a recognised specialty in Ethiopia for over 10 years, yet the field faces significant challenges as it scales up to meet the needs of over 135 million people. The recent history of civil unrest, paired with pandemics and epidemics, have led to EM being a highly regarded specialty in the country with strong support from the Ethiopian Ministry of Health. However, with only nine postgraduate EM training sites and approximately 200 consultants across the country, there is a pressing need to build healthcare capacity in this critical area. Many professionals from bordering countries also look to Ethiopia to support their own training requirements.

In 2025, RCEM partnered with the Ethiopian Society of Emergency and Critical Care Professionals (ESEP) with the aim to support sustainable, locally led development in the specialty. This programme is funded by the UK Department for Health and Social Care/Global Health Partnerships (formerly THET) under their Global Health Workforce Programme, which aims to support Health Partnerships at national and regional levels to address nationally and locally identified health workforce priorities, helping them to build robust health systems capable of addressing the diverse health needs of their populations to ensure optimal health outcomes for all individuals.

Our partnership plans to support development in the following areas:

Accreditation: Establishing a local framework to review current EM training programs, which will be piloted at four training sites.

• Leadership Training: Developing leadership skills through the RCEM EM Leaders program.

• Research Capacity Development: Supporting research growth within the field of EM in Ethiopia.

• BEC Training: Scaling up Basic Emergency Care (BEC) training, aligned with Ministry of Health BEC Scale Up guidance.

• Observerships: Facilitating four observerships at NHS sites for Ethiopian EM faculty, focusing on leadership and quality improvement.

The passion and dedication of ESEP, our team of RCEM Consultant advisors, along with strong support from key stakeholders, including the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, have solidified the foundation of this impactful partnership.

Please contact the Global team if you’d like further information global@rcem.ac.uk

North-West Syria

Developing Emergency Medicine in NW Syria is crucial due to conflict decimating healthcare infrastructure, leaving millions vulnerable to injury and disease. The region has faced severe shortages of medical personnel, supplies, and facilities, making the enhancement of emergency care essential for saving lives and stabilising communities.

RCEM are working with the Syrian Board of Medical Specialties (SBOMS) and Tropical Health Education Trust (THET) on the development of Emergency Medicine Postgraduate Training in North-West Syria with funding via the European Union as part of a five year funded programme.

This programme of work uses the expertise of Syrian Diaspora and RCEM Member and Fellows with interest and experience in curriculum and training programme development, leadership, postgraduate medical assessment to support SBOMS with their aims to improve Postgraduate Training and ultimately to improve patient care and health outcomes.

Please contact the Global team if you’d like further information global@rcem.ac.uk

Ghana

The tragic collapse of the Accra Sports Stadium in May 2001, which resulted in the deaths of 127 Ghanaians, saw the Ghana government recognise the need for developing emergency medicine as a specialty. In response to public outcry, the Ghanaian government established a new national Accident and Emergency Center in Kumasi. This saw the development of a formalised emergency medicine residency programme for doctors and nurses in 2009 at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi and since then another programme has been developed at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

The RCEM has been working with the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons since 2021 with funding from the Department of Social Care (DHSC)/THET.

The first year focused on supporting the key goal of ensuring an “adequate health workforce with the requisite knowledge, skills, competences and attitudes” and was achieved through, supporting with the development of Ghana’s Emergency Medicine curricula, and developing a framework and set of resources to replicated best practice across other specialities​. In April 2022 the team carried out an international accreditation assessment visit of focusing on identifying areas for improvement and providing appropriate responses and recommendations​.

Train the trainer sessions on the latest approaches in medical education, including workplace-based assessments were conducted, through a hybrid approach culminating in an in-person session delivered in to over 90 trainers in Ghana​ as a part of the African Conference of Emergency Medicine.

Following this RCEM was successful in receiving a large-scale grant from DHSC/THET to continue supporting the following key areas:

• Pilot project at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to develop plans to decentralise emergency care away from the two main tertiary centres.
• Development of leadership in Emergency Medicine​, through adapting the RCEM EM leader’s programme
• Virtual lectures linked the GCPS curricula with a focus on bi-directional learning
• International exchanges of RCEM members and GCPS EM faculty members.

Uganda

RCEM’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Dr Diana Kanzira Atwine, the Permanent Secretary of the Uganda Ministry of Health in April 2023, has brought together the Uganda UK Health Alliance and RCEM in support of Uganda’s efforts to help build EM healthcare capacity.

Working with Regional Referral Hospitals and their paired academic institutions identified by the MoH as sites of Clinical Excellence, and UK Trusts with a strong interest and passion in Global Health, a programme of virtual clinical grand rounds has been established within the SCALE Programme – https://uukha.org/scale/

In 2023 a Global Capacity Building Small Grant was won from the Tropical Health Education Trust (THET), the focus of which was Trauma Management. This enabled UK Specialists and Nurses to hold face to face teaching in Ultrasound scanning in trauma (EFAST- Emergency Focused Assessment with Sonography in Trauma), Traumatic Brain Injury, as well as work on the development and implementation of a Trauma tool to assist junior doctors and nurses.

This grant also allowed work towards building a partnership between St Mary’s Hospital, Lacor and Royal United Hospital, Bath for mutual exchange of education, support, staff and to build up a faculty for supporting training in Emergency Medicine. In addition to this, support is ongoing for the development of an MMED EM programme at Gulu University along with Gulu Regional Referral Hospital.