Buchanan-Lee's programme reaps the fruit

UCT senior physician and lecturer Dr Biddy Buchanan-Lee has been elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians

UCT senior physician and lecturer Dr Biddy Buchanan-Lee has been elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in recognition of her innovative teaching programme she started in the Faculty of Health Sciences.

Buchanan-Lee received a special acknowledgement from the president of the Royal College for the programme she developed in Khayelitsha for fourth-year medical students. The programme exposes students to the real world of patient-overcrowding and poor facilities.

Students are taught how to manage complicated diseases to reduce morbidity and mortality, and improve the quality of life of patients at a primary health care level. Patients, on the other hand, are empowered with health knowledge in their own language to improve compliance and reduce the cost of health care.

Buchanan-Lee says students are encouraged to do 'a lot more thinking'.

The international medical and humanitarian aid organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), intends to recruit her students to work elsewhere in African countries, where similar problems are common.