A program to sustainably deliver medical education in three African countries is proving to be a hit among doctors thanks to low-cost technologies and student volunteers. Associate Professor Manoj Thomas, a researcher in the Business School at the University of Sydney, Australia, is pioneering the use of innovative low-cost technology to enable health professionals in resource-poor regions of the world to stay up to date with medical advances. With funding from the university’s International Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Collaboration program, Dr Thomas recently spent two months in Africa, taking his CMES (Continuing Medical Education on Stick) project to hospitals and clinics in Uganda, The Gambia, and Nigeria.
The initiative delivers free information to health practitioners in the form of PDFs and audio files via tiny raspberry-pi computers and auto-running USB drives. Content is updated monthly and the system is designed to be low-cost and easy to use. Raspberry Pi is the name of a series of single-board computers made by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK charity that aims to educate people in computing and create easier access to computing education.
“CMES enables doctors, nurses and health professionals to maintain competence and give patients the best possible care, even in areas with limited internet and disrupted electricity,” said Dr Thomas. Dr Thomas said: “I’m proud to say that all underlying technologies driving CMES have been developed one hundred.
