PIP: A critical issue in the planning of better health care delivery for developing countries is the training and education of health personnel. The Center for Educational Development in Health (CEDH) has field tested its text, Systematic Course Design for the Health Fields, a manual on the application of competency-based curriculum development techniques. A competency-based approach to curriculum design derives instructional objectives, content, and evaluation from the on-the-job responsibilities for the health worker being trained. A field test was conducted in order to determine whether the systematic course design method was applicable in developing countries. For the purpose of the field test, 10 national field directors from Cameroon, Colombia, Honduras, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nepal, and Vietnam trained by CEDH in Boston taught teacher training workshops based on the Systematic Course Design model of a range of health professionals in their own countries. Evaluation of the teacher training workshops was conducted during and immediately following instruction and 1 year later. 167 men and women representing a range of 29 health professions, participated in the workshops. Participants designed 132 courses based on the SCD model and taught 54 courses to about 2000 students. In Colombia, Honduras, Malayasia, and Lebanon, the national field directors applied the method to a range of activities. These field directors developed and taught 11 additional teacher training workshops on SCD to 140 health professionals, and they provided consultation to 12 other health professional schools and governmental agencies. Subject to the limitations imposed by the data, it does seem that a systematic course design method can be applied in the developing world to train health professions teachers. A range of health professionals used the method to design and teach a variety of courses for their own instructional purposes. Further research on the long-range effect of the competency-based training program is required.