The 9th of April 2014 was a major landmark in the journey of rural health services for PNG, when Drs Trevor Kelebi, Gabriel Yohang and Felix Diaku, became the country’s first graduates of the MMED (Rural) program.
After 7 years of arduous post graduate training (all done while holding down full time Medical Superintendent jobs at their respective rural hospitals), they successfully completed their Part 2 exams in October. With completion of their last assignments and research project, and it was all finally done.
For those of us cheering them along the way, the graduation of these three young men represents a new beginning – with more coming through the program and with interest steadily growing, we are very hopeful that we will see a renaissance in interest in Rural Medicine amongst the medical fraternity, as these graduates increasingly become the advocates for change.