New medical schools in Africa: challenges and opportunities. CONSAMS and value of working in consortia.

Africa bears 24% of the world’s burden of disease but harbors only 3% of its health care workers. To cope with this disproportionate burden of disease, the continent’s health workforce requires adequate capacitation. To achieve such capacitation, governments and global funding agencies like the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relieve have decided to support medical school development, both established and new medical schools. By some estimates more than 100 new medical schools will be established in Africa over the next decade. These new medical schools face daunting challenges yet are also presented with some unique opportunities. This article explores some of these challenges and opportunities and suggests how medical schools may function most effectively toward this end by working together in consortia (like the Consortium of New Southern African Medical Schools [CONSAMS]). A seminal report in The Lancet in 2010 recommended that medical schools could most effectively achieve health care strengthening and capacitation by working, not in isolation, but together in in “networks, alliances, and consortia.” CONSAMS was created initially among a group of 5 new medical schools in southern Africa (in Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, Lesotho and Mozambique) together with 2 facilitating northern partners (at Vanderbilt