Medic-to-Medic is a new initiative that aims to encourage UK doctors and medical students to directly sponsor their counterparts in Malawi, and was launched in the London this month.

The programme guarantees to pay the £90 per year tuition fee of 20 trainee doctors in Malawi, selected on the basis of financial need and academic potential, for a full year. Doctors and medical students in the UK will sponsor an individual student, and will receive regular updates from that student on their progress.

"Malawi has just one medical school located in Blantyre, its largest city. Despite government subsidies, it still costs students £90 a year to study and many cannot afford this," says Dr Kate Mandeville, a SHO at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust who founded the program. "I hope by setting up this programme we can increase the number of doctors graduating every year and make real improvements to the healthcare of ordinary Malawians."

Malawi College of Medicine also faces difficulty recruiting academic teachers especially in the preclinical years. It is hoped that Imperial College students will have the opportunity to enhance their skills by assisting with teaching in Malawi during their summer holidays.

The programme, administered through the International Medical Education Trust, also has plans to extend the scheme to postgraduate level in an aim to stem the tide of doctors leaving the country once they have completed their undergraduate studies. It is hoped that specialists could sponsor trainees in the same specialities, providing a supplementation to their local salary and thereby removing some of the incentives to leave Malawi to work in a more developed country.

www.imet2000.org/medictomedic 

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