training

Type of Training - Residency

Length of Training – 4 years

Year Family Medicine established – 1994

Number of family medicine residents graduating each year – unknown

Number of institutions that offer family medicine – 1 (Dubai Residency Training Program [DRTP])

practice

Number of family doctors – 1930 per 100,000 of the population

Physician to population ratio (2005) – 2.02 per 1000 population.

DALY: 10,036 per 100,000 individuals (Due to all Causes).

Life Expectancy:

• Females 2017: 78.9 years

• Males 2017: 76.7 years

Mortality rate 2017:

• 2017 Males: 78 per 1,000 male adults.

• 2017 Females: 55 per 1,000 female adults.

Infant Immunization-HepB3: % of 1-year-old children received: 99%

College of Family Physicians (Y or N):

• No

training

The undergraduate medical training is offered in six medical schools: The Faculty of Medicine at UAE University, Dubai Medical College, Gulf Medical University, Sharjah University, Ras-al-Khaimah Medical and Health Science University, and Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, a private facility established in 2016. The length of training varies between 5 to 6 years (Ahmed et al., 2018).

The first family medicine training started at Al Ain University in 1994, family medicine residency is the oldest postgraduate training program in the UAE (Abyad et al., 2007).

The family medicine residency program is run under the Dubai Residency Training Program (DRTP) (Alsharief et al., 2918). UAE has a 4 yearlong residency program to train family physicians that is very similar to kind of training available in Europe, Canada, and Australia (Alsharief et al., 2007).

The Dubai Residency Training Program (DRTP) was launched in 1992 (Ahmed et al., 2018). “The DRTP is a structured postgraduate educational training program that bridges the gap between undergraduate medical school training and the delivery of unsupervised family medicine or hospital-based specialist care.” (Ahmed et al., 2018). It was established to improve healthcare in the UAE through education and training, offer training that meets internationally recognized standards, deliver best educational practices, achieve a balance between clinical service delivery and continuing professional development, and stimulate continuous improvement through learner-specific customized training and ongoing evaluation. (Ahmed et al., 2018). The DRTP initially offered training in only family medicine, now it provides vocational training in 16 different specialties. (Ahmed et al., 2018). Since 2006, the Dubai Residency Training Program (DTRP) restricted the entrance to the family medicine program to UAE nationals only, due to the high demand and increasing number of applicants (Alsharief et al., 2018).

practice

UAE has a physician to population ratio of 2.02/1000 (Abyad et al., 2007). The number of family doctors is 19.3 per 10000 of population (van Weel et al., 2018). Family Physicians practice in a primary health care facility; with a restricted scope of practice (Alsharief et al., 2018). Family physicians have a gatekeeping role in the government system, but not in the private system (personal interview, 2018). Within a government run primary healthcare center there are doctors, equipment needed, and all services required for patients (personal interview, 2018). The doctors working in the government are not allowed to work in the private hospitals or clinics (personal interview, 2018). Doctors who are trained outside the UAE can start working as family physician/ general practitioner after passing the evaluation exam (personal interview, 2018). Dubai has its own exam, while the other 6 emirates have the same exam from the Ministry of Health (MOH). A Family Physicians are required to renew their license every year in order to be able to continue their practice (personal interview, 2018). A total of 40 continuing medical evaluation (CME) credit hours need to be completed each year in order to renew the license (personal interview, 2018). The CME credit hours could be achieved through a combination of online components and by attending conferences (personal interview, 2018).