History of Clinical Medicine in Uganda

The origin of Clinical Officers is traced to the initiatives by Dr. Albert Cook who in 1917 started the first Medical Training School in Uganda for Dressers and Dispensers to facilitate his medical work. It was this medical training which gave rise to the establishment of health training institutions for medical practitioners in Uganda. By 1918, under the Ministry of Health, Uganda was training medical practitioners who were called Medical Assistants at the time.In 1946, the Uganda protectorate government identified training in health as one of the avenues to absorb the returnees from the 2nd World War and to care and promote their health. It was this year when the current Masaka School of Comprehensive Nursing was established to train ex-service men and offer some medical skills. Ex-service men with good formal education were trained for 2 years to become Medical Assistants (as named then). Other Ex-service men with little formal education were trained for one year to qualify as nursing orderlies. The need for Medical Assistants and Nursingorderlies kept on increasing and Masaka Campus could not cope up with the demand. The Government then decided to transfer the training of Medical Assistants to Mbale and left Masaka to continue training nurses.

In view of the need for a Hospital in the Training of Medical Assistants (as called then), the current Mbale COHES which was initially training Environmental Health Assistants and Inspectors was later in 1950 converted to train Medical Assistants because of its vicinity to Mbale Hospital. The School was under the Ministry of Health and together with Mbale School of Hygiene; they were being supervised by the Medical Superintendent of Mbale Hospital.

In 1960, the administration of the Medical Assistant Training School of Mbale was handed over to a Ugandan after a White Nurse Tutor drafted a curriculum in 1970 which was officiated by 1975. Later in 1996; the name/qualification title was changed and modified; evolving from Medical Assistant to Clinical Officer after adding Community Health to Clinical Medicine Training and Practice to cater for Public Health priorities as put forth in the 1978 in Karzakistan and later the 1990s MDGs Development which called for Community based interventions including community participation in health promotion, care and especially preventive medicine. similarly, BCMCH development was brought on board to supplement the MDGs which ended in 2015 and currently the BCMCH suits the UN SDGs pursuit by being further trained to cater for the Community through research based interventions, breakout investigations including pandemics, such as the current Covid-19, measles, rubella, as well as the endemic conditions like TB, malaria, among others like zoonoses such as Anthrax.

In 2006, Uganda became one of the pioneers in career progression and professional development of Medical Clinical Officers from Diploma (DCM) to Degree (BCMCH) level, which is in efforts to retool and improve skill sets of the professionals in the ever changing and challenging medical field in order to meet basic, emergency, and specialized healthcare needs of our evolving society. This was equally intended to match desired regional and international labor market skills sets and competence levels, like our counterparts in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda, and USA where training of these cadres is streamlined to Masters (specialization) and PhD. In the East African Community, BCMCH is currently offered by Mount Kenya University, Egerton University, Great Lakes University of Kisumu, and Kabarak University in Kenya, University of Rwanda, and Kampala International University Western Campus in Bushenyi-Ishaka and KIU-Tanzania Campus.