Short courses: the fastest CV upgrades a junior doctor can buy

Our registrar-post guide shows what selection committees score: exam progress, discipline experience, and evidence you’re serious. Short courses are the entry level of that evidence — days rather than months, thousands rather than tens of thousands of rand — and a handful are not optional at all: some programmes and college exams require them by name. This page maps the South African landscape.

The life-support core

The resuscitation courses are the spine of every junior doctor’s course CV. In South Africa the American Heart Association (AHA) courses — BLS, ACLS, PALS and the neonatal ANLS — run through training centres coordinated by the Resuscitation Council of Southern Africa (RCSA), which maintains the national faculties and accredited-centre lists. ATLS belongs to the American College of Surgeons and is run in South Africa under the Trauma Society of South Africa; APLS is the UK Advanced Life Support Group’s paediatric course, run locally via apls.co.za.

PALS or APLS?

They cover similar ground but aren’t the same certificate: PALS is the AHA’s two-day course (card valid two years); APLS is the ALSG’s course — two intensive days plus online pre-course work, valid four years, and pitched at specialists and trainees while welcoming doctors from internship up. The decider for paeds-bound doctors: the CMSA College of Paediatricians requires evidence of APLS or PALS completed within the five years before the final fellowship exam — so either works, but plan the timing against your exam date.

BASIC: the intensive-care starter course

BASIC (Basic Assessment and Support in Intensive Care) is a standardised ~two-day course covering the essentials of caring for the critically ill — airway, ventilation, shock, sepsis and more — taught as lectures plus small-group skill stations, with pre- and post-course assessment. It was developed at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and runs on a not-for-profit licensing model in roughly 50 countries. In South Africa it’s advertised through the Critical Care Society of Southern Africa (CCSSA), with regional coordinators in Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Johannesburg and Gqeberha. If you’re heading for anaesthesia, ICU or emergency medicine — or just about to rotate through an ICU as a junior — this is the course that makes your first ICU rotation less terrifying.

Ultrasound: the skill interns never get taught

Point-of-care ultrasound is a genuine CV differentiator precisely because SA undergraduate and internship training doesn’t formally teach it (as a 2023 peer-reviewed review noted). The recognised pathway belongs to EMSSA (the Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa), whose ePoCUS programme runs a Core course (seven modules including eFAST, basic lung, aorta, basic cardiac and ultrasound-guided vascular access) and an Advanced course — with certification by a separate credentialing exam, not mere attendance. the same 2023 review notes EMSSA remains the only credentialing organisation for emergency POCUS in South Africa. Entry-level alternatives to get started: the Foundation for Professional Development’s blended eFAST course (11 hours, 11 CPD points, online plus a one-day practical), Stellenbosch University’s accredited short course, and provider workshops like MD Inc’s one-day Basic EMUS. For O&G-bound doctors, FPD also runs a Basic Obstetrics & Gynaecology Ultrasound course (23 hours, 23 CPD points).

ECG: free options exist — and it’s always examined

Three verified options, starting free: UCT’s ECG Online — a free, self-directed web portal from UCT’s Clinical Skills Centre and Division of Cardiology, covering systematic interpretation from basic rhythms to complex abnormalities; the online ACLS Pharmacology & ECG Interpretation course on EMGuidance Academy (~9 hours, 9 CPD points) — useful pre-ACLS preparation; and the Academy of Advanced Life Support’s one-day ECG Recognition and Interpretation course in Gauteng (9 CEUs). Fees for the latter two aren’t published — enquire with the provider.

Discipline-specific courses worth knowing

• ESMOE (Essential Steps in Managing Obstetric Emergencies): introduced in 2008 to reduce maternal deaths — and you likely won’t need to buy it, because it’s built into internship: the O&G rotation mandates ESMOE drills, and the HPCSA internship logbook contains twelve ESMOE modules completed in-service.
• Surgical skills: Wits Surgery’s three-day Basic Surgical Skills course (R3,000, 2026 dates published) and the Groote Schuur Surgical Skills Training Centre’s BESST course (explicitly aimed at interns and junior registrars) — both carry certification recognised by the Colleges of Medicine.
• Airway: OpenAirway, with UCT’s Department of Anaesthesia, runs hands-on airway workshops (the two-day Core Airway Skills course was written for the South African environment).
• HIV medicine: the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society’s online Advanced Clinical HIV Management Course for Doctors — 13 self-paced modules, 30 CPD points (28 clinical + 2 ethics) — is explicitly pitched at doctors preparing for the HIV-management diploma.
• Emergency care in low-resource settings: the WHO’s five-day Basic Emergency Care course, delivered in Africa with AFEM-certified trainers — note it targets providers without formal emergency-care training, so for junior doctors its CV value is mainly as an instructor or global-health credential.

Matching courses to your target specialty

• Emergency medicine: BLS → ACLS → ATLS → PALS, then EMSSA ePoCUS — UCT EM’s programme requires in-date ACLS/ATLS/APLS-or-PALS.
• Anaesthesia / ICU: BLS → ACLS → BASIC, plus an airway workshop.
• Paediatrics: BLS → PALS or APLS (required within 5 years of the final fellowship exam) → ANLS.
• Surgery / trauma: BLS → ACLS → ATLS → a basic surgical-skills course (Wits BSS / BESST).
• O&G: ESMOE (in internship) → ANLS → FPD’s O&G ultrasound course.
• Family/district medicine: BLS → ACLS → the HIV management course; the WHO BEC framework if you’re drawn to teaching or global-health work.

Two practical rules. First, time validity around applications: a certificate that expires the month before adverts close is worth nothing, and the two-year AHA cards need more active management than the four-year ATLS/APLS ones. Second, every accredited course also feeds your CPD record — how those points work is our companion guide: CPD points explained.