Cost analysis of medical specialty training programme in Sri Lanka

To analyze the programme cost of the postgraduate medical specialty training in Sri Lanka. Total programme cost and the Programme cost for Medical Microbiology training (as an example of postgraduate training) were analyzed. The data for the analysis were collected from the information available at the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM). Some of the data were available from the reports published by the PGIM, while others were collected through interviews with responsible officers. The cost of medical specialty training involves 6 years curriculum that is necessary to become a specialist in the field of Medical Microbiology. The units of Postgraduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM) divided into 28 cost centres and categorized as administration, education and education supporting units. The data collection forms were used as tools to collect the data in 2007. The information was compiled as labour cost, material cost and capital cost. Direct allocation method was applied to allocate all costs in each cost centre with using the allocation criteria.Total cost of Postgraduate Institute of Medicine is SLR 53,873,222.57 for the year 2007. The total programme cost comprises of SLR 30,338,036.04 as labour cost and SLR 18,071,521.57 and SLR 5,453,653.90 as material cost and capital cost respectively. The programme cost for the Medical Microbiology training was SLR 5,436,914.90, consisted three stages in the field of Medical Microbiology. The cost for the Diploma in Medical Microbiology was SLR 472,870.00. In second stage of MD in Microbiology, cost was SLR 445,337.00. Cost for the Board Certification as a Specialist in Microbiology was SLR 2,791,750.00, this mainly involves overseas training component of the postgraduate programme. The study found that the largest potion (more than 50%) was utilized for the overseas training when compared with other stages in the training programme. This should be an area for further policy development to be strongly be considered by the management of the PGIM, as well as by the Ministry of Healthcare & Nutrition. Cost of the overseas training of the postgraduate training may be reduced by many means and this has to be carefully considered not to compromise the quality of training. Lose of overseas trained medical postgraduates due to non-returning candidates is another important factor that need to be seriously considered by the PGIM and Ministry of Healthcare & Nutrition.