New Chisinau Family Medicine Center Houses Teaching and Assessment Center

Stating that the new University Family Medicine Center (FMC) is an "instrument of transition to the modern European approach of healthcare provision," Moldovan Prime Minister Vasiliu Tarlev thanked AIHA's Chisinau/Norfolk partners for establishing the facility during his remarks at its official opening ceremony, April 10. The community-based clinic, located at the State University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Nicolae Testemitanu" (SMPU) in Chisinau, is a replica of the Pro-San FMC established by the partnership in 2001. Like its US partner Eastern Virginia Medical School, the new Moldovan FMC has its own Clinical Skills Teaching and Assessment Center, which will provide training for students and residents, and retraining for physicians and other healthcare professionals. The Clinic is unique in that it integrates a broad range of services that address the overall needs of the population, introduces new technologies in health professions education based on the standardized patient approach, uses distance learning, and can be replicated by Moldovan health officials on a wide scale.

More than 150 people—including Moldovan Deputy Minister of Health Gheorghe Turcanu, US Ambassador to Moldova Pamela Hyde Smith, and Chisinau Mayor Serafim Urecheanu—gathered on the grounds of the new facility for the event. Addressing attendees were keynote speakers Turcanu, Hyde Smith, and Urecheanu, as well as Ion Ababii, rector of SMPU; Donald Combs, vice president of planning and program development at EVMS; and James P. Smith, AIHA executive director. Valeriu Nemerenko, head of the Buyucan Health District Administration, and Victor Savin, head of the City Health Administration, also attended the event. After the ceremony, the speakers and the Chisinau/Norfolk partners attended a press conference where they informed local journalists and members of the community about the new FMC.

By developing the FMC, the Chisinau/Norfolk partners have made it possible for people of all ages to receive affordable, accessible, and comprehensive healthcare services, including primary care, breast and cervical cancer screening, family planning, and patient education and counseling. The three-story facility accommodates the FMC on the first floor, a laboratory on the second, and the Teaching and Assessment Center on the third. The facility also houses a large library and resource center, equipped with several computers that provide access to the Internet.

Staff at the FMC received training in primary care screening and services, health education and promotion, and clinic management through a series of AIHA workshops, conferences, and partnership exchanges, as well as through other USAID health reform efforts. Professors from SMPU will serve as consulting staff physicians at the FMC and will work with its director, Alla Nemerenko, a clinical therapy specialist. Overall, the FMC's staff will consist of 11 family physicians, 11 nurses, a psychologist, a surgeon, 4 lab technicians, an ultrasound specialist, and 17 medical consultants with varying specialties.

The FMC's Teaching and Assessment Center is staffed by Director Alexander Gavriluk, an internist, and eight "standardized patients" who have been trained to simulate the symptoms of various illnesses and will be "treated" by the medical students and residents as a part of a clinical competency testing process. The standardized patient approach provides an opportunity for medical residents to get hands-on training, interact with "patients," assess their illnesses, and plan courses of treatment.

Following the ribbon-cutting, the FMC's first actual patient-a six-year-old boy-recited a poem and was presented with a small gift from the US partners. Ababii then led officials and guests on a tour of the FMC, during which, they observed resident physicians counseling standardized patients.

The University Family Medicine Center is expected to serve approximately 12,000 patients within its first year.

Return to the menu of articles