College of Medicine (CoM), University of Malawi CDG

The College of Medicine (CoM) Research and Career Development Group (CDG) aims to equip early career faculty members, post-doctoral researchers and PhD students with the capabilities to pursue independent and successful academic and research career paths through the provision of structured, institutional support.  Programmes such as Personal Development Planning (PDP), Mentoring and Postgraduate Supervision are being embedded into CoM structures in order to stimulate, encourage, support and strengthen these groups of individuals to progress in their careers as researchers, teachers and academics

CDG Members

Assoc. Prof Victor Mwapasa, Dr Lucinda Manda-Taylor, Dr Gertrude Kalanda-Chapotera, Assoc. Prof Fanuel Lampiao, Dr Vincent Jumbe,  Dr Cecilia Malwichi-Nyirenda

Achievements

So far, the CoM Research and Career Development Group has successfully hosted a PDP Workshop that initiated individuals into developing their personal development goals, and run a Mentorship induction workshop to introduce the Mentorship programme at the CoM.  A list of mentors and mentees has been compiled so as to support early career researchers and PhD students with finding their local support.  A list of Supervisors has also been compiled with the aim of identifying individuals that PhD students can reach out to for supervisory support.  The Group is in the process of finalizing the development of the website and populating it with resources and tools that will enable future users needing the same type of support with the necessary resources to kick-start their research and career development paths.  

Future Plans

Plans to conduct a Training Needs Assessment are underway with the aim of informing the College of the training needs of its faculty and students.  An output from this exercise will be the development of a training calendar of scheduled activities, which is to be circulated by the Research Support Centre (RSC).  In addition, a PhD Student Handbook has been drafted and the contents are to facilitate PhD students embed PDP into their portfolio of activities.  

If you would like further information please contact vmwapasa69 [at] gmail [dot] com (Assoc. Prof Victor Mwapasa.)

CoM Website