The first university to train clinical officers was Egerton University[15] in 1999. Programs also exist at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology,[16] Kenya Methodist University (KEMU)[17] and Mt Kenya University.[18] The diploma in Clinical Medicine and Surgery takes three years to complete on a trimester system. The Bachelor of Clinical Medicine and Community Health lasts four years and is offered as a direct entry, or a top-up degree for diploma holders.
The training follows the medical model. In the first year students learn human biology through in-depth lectures in Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Pathology etc. The second year involves intensive lectures in the clinical subjects i.e. Medicine, Surgery, Paediatrics, and Obstetrics and Gynecology. The last year concentrates on bedside lectures in a teaching hospital where they rotate in every department. They attend consultants' ward rounds, clerk patients and present medical histories, perform deliveries and act as first assistants in major surgery. They also attend clinical meetings and write prescriptions which at this stage must be counter-signed by a supervising clinician.
There is special emphasis on primary care with modules on community health taught throughout the course. In the third year students must spend at least one month in a Provincial Rural Health Training Centre where they immunise children, examine pregnant women and offer family planning services in mother and child health clinics. They treat in-patients and out-patients under the guidance of qualified Clinical officers. They also organise outreach services where they venture into remote rural villages, seeing patients and immunising children. During this time they complete a project in community diagnosis.
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