The article by Kramer et al. (2008) titled ''Anatomy: Spotlight on Africa'' made interesting reading. In the article, the authors describe the state of teaching of anatomy in Africa and make comparisons with trends in the United States of America (USA), Europe, and Australia. They observed that dissection was a constant feature of most departments. They concluded that contact hours in gross anatomy, histology, and embryology compare favorably and that African departments appear to be well resourced and in most cases, adequately staffed. Interestingly, they also assert that African departments appear to be in line with the rest of the world in terms of problem-based learning (PBL). The article raises important issues that require closer scrutiny before generalizations of this nature can be made.
First, out of the 64 medical schools in Africa, the authors make interpretations from 19 medical schools. Although the authors acknowledge the low response rate, a response rate of 30% is, nevertheless, too little to make generalizations for the African Continent.
Second, resources are something that many sub-Saharan African countries desire, as evidenced from the tags ''developing nations'' or ''resource-constrained'' settings applied to sub-Saharan African countries. For example, the student computer ratios may be as low as 1-50 rendering computerassisted learning a nonstarter. It is also not unusual for departments to have a 1:10 microscope to student ratio. Additionally, many institutions do not produce their own histology slides and, as such, rely on histological slides ordered from the West 15 years ago, if not more. However, South Africa is a complex geopolitical country-it is both developed world and developing world. Some South African universities, for example, the University of the Witwatersrand and Stellenbosch University are comparable, in resources and infrastructure, to some universities in the USA, Australia, and Europe and can indeed assert that they are well resourced. This is not true for many African universities and my university, the University of Zambia, in particular.
Third, with regard to the claim that many universities have introduced PBL, the authors offer no working definition of PBL, which makes it difficult to make a judgment. In my experience, PBL means different things to different people. In Africa, the confusion is compounded by the fact that medical education, as a discipline per se, has not evolved to the same extent as in the USA, Australia, and Europe. This means that many lecturers are not well acquainted with medical education jargon. According to Barrows and Tamblyn (1980) and Barrows (1986), the principal educational objectives that PBL programs must have are the following: