Medical Education Specialist

Job Description

CALL FOR CONSULTANTS

SCOPE OF WORK

Medical Education Specialist Consultant

CapacityPlus

1. Background and Objectives of the Consultancy

CapacityPlus is the USAID-funded global project uniquely focused on the health workforce needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The project is expected to strengthen the human resources needed to implement quality health programs by working in five main result areas. One of these areas is strengthening human resources for health (HRH) workforce development, with a strong focus on scaling up pre-service education in order to produce larger numbers of qualified graduates who are who are capable of addressing the priority health needs of their country, and working where needed in urban and rural settings, and at primary, secondary and tertiary care facilities, with a focus on rural and underserved populations. Building high quality, relevant medical education initiatives is an essential component of effectively strengthening health systems to achieve positive impacts in population health.

As such CapacityPlus, is providing technical support to the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI). This initiative aims to support best practices and innovations in medical education in order to increase access to quality health care in sub-Saharan Africa, and to contribute to the US Government’s commitment to training 140,000 additional health workers by 2015.

The Medical Education Specialist Consultant will provide technical support toward CapacityPlus’ efforts in this area. The consultant will report to the Health Workforce Development Team Lead, CapacityPlus.

2. Scope of Work for the Medical Education Specialist Consultant

The Consultant will be responsible for the following:

Attending MEPI workshops and facilitating specific sessions in selected focus areas;

1. Identifying areas of technical assistance needed by MEPI consortium schools;
2. Providing follow-up technical assistance (distance and in-person);
3. Creating general briefs on issues in medical education;
4. Supporting the health workforce development team in the production and application of methods and tools to assess and build the capacity of medical schools to scale up the production of more, and more qualified, graduates.
5. Undertaking other related tasks as requested by the Team Lead.

3. Deliverables and Reports

The Consultant will submit the following deliverables:

• Meeting presentations
• Report and PowerPoint presentations for each school assisted
• At least ten (10) high resolution digital photographs of each of the institutions assisted (infrastructure, staff, students, clinical practice sites, etc.)

• Technical, strategic and programmatic documents, progress and status reports, technical briefs, workplans, curricula, and other documents as requested.

4. Timeline, Duration and Level of Effort

Timeline and duration:

The timeline and duration of the Medical Education Specialist consultancy shall be from 1 week to 6 months from commencement of the effort.

Level of Effort:

The contract for the Medical Education Specialist Consultant is expected to be for 7 to 75 working days during the period, unless otherwise agreed.

5. Location and Travel

The consultant will be based domestically for distance technical assistance – (home-based), with travel to workshops and to countries with MEPI consortium schools. Additional travel is anticipated based on the needs identified for in-person technical assistance.

6. Qualifications and Experience

The required qualifications for the consultancy assignment are as follows:

• Advanced degree in medicine, international public health, health sciences, or related discipline and at least ten years’ experience preferred in public health, development, training and/or human resources; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Knowledge of human resources for health and health systems strengthening issues via professional and/or academic experience, including HRH frameworks and workforce development and support issues in low resource settings.
• Experience in facilitating international conferences and moderating sessions.
• Demonstrated ability to work with multiple-stakeholder groups and facilitate participatory discussions.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English; demonstrated ability in a second language highly desirable.
• Strong writing and editing skills for internal and external result/country strategies, research/technical briefs, reports and other documents.
• Comfortable working in teams as well as acting independently in the implementation of specific tasks, multitasking and prioritizing, working under pressure and meeting deadlines.
• Experience meeting complex technical assistance requirements and monitoring several concurrent projects/activities with a results-oriented focus
• Experience providing technical assistance in a low-resource setting
• High level of computer literacy in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet
• Ability to travel up to 35% of the time

7. Consultant Approval, Supervision and Reporting

All consultants must be approved by IntraHealth International and comply with IntraHealth and USAID rules and regulations. The consultant will submit monthly invoices including a brief activity report to CapacityPlus.

The Medical Education Specialist Consultant will report to and be supervised by the CapacityPlus Deputy Director, or designee.

8. Submission of Application

Please submit a resume/CV, and cover letter expressing how your knowledge, skills and abilities are a direct match for the scope of work, at procurement@intrahealth.org. Place the “Medical Education Specialist” title in the subject line. Resumes that do not match the Knowledge and Expertise will not be considered. No phone calls please.

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