Qualifications of HIV/AIDS consultants

[Guest guest]

Dear Moderator and members,

With all due respect for the custodians of the funding for work in the

HIV/AIDS field, here again we have an advertisment for Community

Consultants.

Now look at the tasks, some are medical and pathological so they would

require scientists and medical doctors with considerable HIV knowledge but

so many other positions such as community outreach, program design and

management, education and training, project monitoring and evaluation need

experience not MD, PhD, or MPH.

One of the often critical tasks involved in consulting is to know which way

the wheels should turn in HIV treatment care and support and so far as I

know there is no specific higher learning profile that beats commitment,

trust and experience.

I for one am far too old to go back to University to get a PhD or a MPH but

I would have a fair idea after working in three countries and spending

nearly every waking hour immersed in this field which way the best results

might either be planned or assessed or costed.

I trust that the selection criteria for positions of crucial importance

will have a higher regard to experience and skills than " higher learning

profiles " . Such carefully selected people might even be cheaper to employ

and more effective at networking for results.

This is a universal criticism of consulting positions world wide and it

reminds me of the criticism I heard of a zealot who was always preaching

the good news without any idea of the lives of the people to whom he was

speaking. The experience was described as being so heavenly minded as to be

no earthly use.

I hope I haven't opened a can of worms - no, maybe I hope I have.

Geoffrey

E-mail: <gheaviside@...>