Population Reproductive Health and Demography Master Program

History of development of Population Reproductive Health and Demography Master Program at the Department of Public Health & Community Medicine

The degree was established as part of the ‘sustainablity plan’ of the joint collaboration project with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health ‘JHSPH’:

" مشروع رفع الكفاءة فى مجال الصحة الإنجابية فى صعيد مصر"

“Building Reproductive Health Capacity to serve the people of Upper Egypt Project”

which extended over a period of 7 years from 2007 till 2014, funded by Gates Institute at JHSPH. One of the multiple activities of this collaboration was making it possible for junior faculty, assistant lecturers and demonstrators to audit courses at JHSPH and stay for 2 months to develop their teaching and research skills. Another activity to raise the research skills of staff was to provide small grants for research based on compitition. There were other activities that I’ll not discuss here.But this was not how things started. The start was to submit a proposal to Gates Insitute at JHSPH to get funding for the various activities proposed by the project. Activities were mainly planned to fill the gap in qualified public health professionals in the local MOHP to run reproductive health programs and take leadership positions. The principal investigators of this collaboration were late professor Ali H. Zarzour and Prof. Omaima El-Gibaly MH.Starting in 2009 a team of me and Dr. Ghada S. Al-Attar started to draft the reproductive health masters program guided by the courses taught as JHSPH . This demanded also internal reviews by public health professionals in the field and external reviewers from other Egyptian universities and to abide with laws and regulations that were set by the quality assurance of medical education unit of Assiut university. All requirements of the Higher Council of Universities in Egypt were fulfiled and the degree was accredited as a sub speciality of public health. This was followed by communication with the central Ministry of Health and Population Office ‘MOHP’ in Cairo to add the newly discipline to the list of masters programs for physicinas at the MOHP to enroll in.Ten lecturers and assitant lecturers travled in batches of 2 to USA and attended courses in reproductive health for two months each. All juniors who attended courses at JHSPH were asked to teach the courses in the new degree to transfer their knowledge and skills to the next generation. The degree was our sustainability plan for the achievments in building manpower capacity. This degree is the first and only degree in all Egyptian universities and we started to enroll students from MOHP in the degree in 2012 and currently 14 graduated from our program and many in leadership positions in family planning in Assiut.A question that some would raise why does this masters program has a clinical training componant at the Obstetrics and Gynecology. As this degree accepts only physicians who work at PHC units, during the life time of the project we did numerous trainings to PHC physicians in public health skills to develop their community based orientation in service provision, monitor and evaluate their activities etc. but we identified also that their under graduate training was not sufficient develop their clinical competencies and it needed to be re-enforced. That was the reason for including clinical training in the master’s program.We took our achievment one step further and after the project ended I lead a team under my leadership from Drs. Ghada S. Al-attar; Miette Mamdouh; Amira AlGazar; Doaa Mohamed; Heba Mahmoud; to start proposing a doctorate degree in Population Reproductive Health and Demography. This step was crucial to develop faculty at the university who will be responsible for this degree in the future. We started to enroll demonstrators in the degree starting from 2020. Currently we have 3 enrolled university graduates appointed at the department who are the future faculty of this discipline. We acknowledge also our great professor Dr. Mahmoud Fathalla who had a great role in guiding us to set up the collaboration with JHSPH and we will always be indeted to Prof. Amy Tsui the director of the Gates Institute at JHSPH for her tremendous support and encouragement as well as Prof. David Bishai from which we learned a lot through out the years of this project. Lastly the young generation of beneficieries of this collaboration are the ones who made this journey succesful. When young people are given the opportunity and under a visionary leadership anything is possible.

Team Leader for Developing the Degree

Prof. Omaima El-Gibaly

Our Graduates and their Current Positions

RH Specialist Al-Eman Women Hospital	Dr. Boshra Hussein Ahmad
RH Specialist at Assiut Urban PHC	Dr. Ousha M. Seoudy
Medial Supervisor assistant at Assiut MOH	Dr. Dalia Abdel Moez Mahmoud
Assistant Lecturer Aswan Department of Public Health	Dr. Maha Sayed Ismail
Director of Family PlanningProgram Assiut	Dr. Marwa Abu ElMakarem ElLeithry
District Family planning Director Sedfa	Dr. Safaa Hamed Ahmad
District Family Planning Director Abnoub	Dr. Heba Sayed Sabra
Person in charge of Assiut Family Planning Mobile clinics	Dr. Taghreed Hakeek
RH specialist Assistant at Sohag Directorate	Dr. Rania Ahmad Maghraby
RH specialist Assiut	Dr. Ireny Edward Mesad
RH specialist Cairo	Dr. Amal Ibrahim Hussein
RH specialist Assiut	Dr.Manal Mukhtar Farghal
Abroad in Kuweit	Dr.Fatma Abdel Fattah Ibrahim
Family Planning Supervisor Assiut East Administration	Dr. Zeinab Farag Hamed

Currently enrolled students in the masters program

Demonstrator at Department of Public Health	Dr. Marwa Abdel Maled
Demonstrator at Department of Public Health	Dr. Miray Maged Emil
Demonstrator at Department of Public Health	Dr. Doneez Amir Adly
PHC physician at Assiut MOHP	Dr. Nahla M. M. Mahmoud
PHC physician at Assiut MOHP	Dr. Marwa Fazaa Hassan
PHC physician at Assiut MOHP	Dr. Fatma M. Tawfik
Physician at New Valley MOHP	Dr. Samah Ali Ezzat
PHC physician at Assiut MOHP	Dr. Amal Tharwat Saeed

Students enrolled in the doctorate degree

Director of Family Planning Program Asssiut MOHP

Dr. Marwa Abu elMakarem ElLeithy

Abnoub District Family PlanningDirector

Dr. Heba Sayed Sabra

Teaching Faculty

Prof. Omaima El-Gibaly MH

Prof. Ghada S. Al-Attar

Prof. eman M. Monazea

Prof. Etemad Abdel Reheem El-Sherif

Prof. Faten Mohamed Rabee

Prof. Manal M. Mostafa Darwish

Assistant Prof. Mirette Mamdouh Wesely

Assistant Prof. Amira Fathy Al-Gazzar

Assistant Prof. Doaa M.Mahmoud Osman

Assistant Prof. Shaimaa Abdel Samee M.

Lecturer Heba Mahmoud M.

Selected international publications of graduates

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29195636/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32413730/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32193127/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35761227/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36088377

Program Specification and content

Use the link below to browse throught the Program aand courses specificiations of the RH masters and doctorate programs and their log books

http://www.aun.edu.eg/medicine/ar/department/postgraduates?id=4150

Faculty of Medicine