Improving family planning pre-service education: experience from Eastern Europe and Eurasia region.

Significant quality of care and cost-effectiveness benefits can be reaped when a coordinated fully functioning medical education system exists in a country. This means that pre-service and in-service training are closely linked and both teach and reinforce evidence- based scientific knowledge and clinical skills that are consistent throughout a medical professionals career. In the Eastern Europe & Eurasia Region there has been significant investment in family planning (FP) in-service training. The Europe and Eurasia Regional Family Planning Activity supported by the USAID Europe and Eurasia Regional Bureau undertook a one year initiative to address the key problems in teaching FP at the pre-service level. This report describes how the Regional Activity and its partners in the region approached pre-service medical education and presents key elements of its strategy and implementation. (Excerpt)