Special Projects

Development Program in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This project is now in its 14th year of providing technical assistance to the Ministries of Health and Faculties of Medicine in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH). Funding for the first 10 years was provided through a series of contribution agreement with CIDA. Since 2005 funding has been under a contract with the World Bank’s Health Sector Enhancement Project. The focus of programming has the reform of the primary care system in BH through the development of a model of Family Medicine. Our emphasis continues to be on educational and professional development across a spectrum of levels and disciplines.

During this year, we completed the tenth year of Family Medicine specialization, the sixth cycle of the highly successful Program of Additional Training for doctors and nurses and achieved the training numbers noted in the table below. Other highlights from 2008 included:

• Celebration of 10 years of Family Medicine development at an international conference hosted by colleagues in Tuzla, BH, the location of the first Family Medicine Teaching Center in eastern/central Europe.
• Development of a handbook for clinical skills to be provided to all students and residents of FM
• Collaboration with the World Health Organization in their primary care project, developing, conducting and evaluating a series of clinical audits.
• Negotiation of a CDN$1 million extension of project activities through October 2010. This will bring total project funding since 1995 to approximately $20 million.