The morbidity and mortality due to cancer is increasing in Mozambique, like in many sub-Saharan countries. Most cancer patients in Mozambique are cared, at some point in time during their cancer-related experiences, by newly graduated medical doctors working at primary health care (PHC) level where they start their clinical carriers. Consequently, it is expected that new medical graduates are capable to appropriately care for cancer patients at PHC level. However, the prevalent perception in Mozambique, as in many other countries worldwide, is that the new medical graduates have deficient competencies in oncology and palliative care. Moreover, the curricula implemented in Medical Schools are inadequate by lacking oncology-related topics and have limited time allocated for clinical practice with cancer patients. Therefore, a need to revisit the curricula of undergraduate medical education to embrace all aspects of care of patients with cancers, including: psychosocial and ethical issues, screening, diagnosis and initial management of cancer patients; follow-up of patients after chemotherapy and radiotherapy; recognition and management of oncological emergencies; palliative care among other oncology-related issues. There are also significant lack of oncology and palliative care related research, particularly in Mozambique. Medical Schools have, therefore, an important role in preparing future medical doctors with essential competencies for cancer patients care and educate populations for cancer prevention, but also to carry research to inform better clinical and public health policies and practice for improved care of patient with cancer and other illnesses. Thus, this presentation will reflect on current state of medical training and explore opportunities for improvements in preparing future medical doctors for clinical and public health practice as well as for carrying out particularly implementation research to inform better local policies and practice for oncological patient care in Mozambique.

In 2016-2017, the College of Pathologists of East Central and Southern Africa (COPECSA) in partnership with the University of Colorado Cancer Centre and African Strategies for Advancing Pathology (ASAP) was the recipient of an NCI PAR 15-155 initiative, a regional programme for improving anatomical pathology to support cancer care. This was a 17 month research strategy that focused on evaluating the best approaches to training pathologists and senior residents in East, Central & Southern Africa (ECSA) with high quality standardized cancer staging in order to determine which approach is most effective at improving the expertise of the pathology workforce in Low Middle Income Countries (LMICs). One outcome of the project was to share the lessons learned to contribute to future training efforts. A follow-up training workshop was held in November 2018 funded through an NIH R13 grant award. This presentation will describe the process of developing the curricula and the outcomes from these training workshops.