The National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Faculty of Medicine has been granted medical school status after meeting international standards.
Nust introduced the Faculty of Medicine in 2005, but was limited to enrolling 25 medical students per year. In that time, the university has been under assessment over its capacity to produce quality doctors.
Now the university has met local and international requirements to start a medical school.
In line with the new status, the medical school will be able to enrol more students, starting next year.
The Medical School is housed at Mpilo Central Hospital although Ekusileni Medical Centre is set to be transformed into a NUST-run specialist training institution.
During a recent tour of the institution by Iranian specialist doctors, NUST Faculty of Medicine executive dean Professor Elopy Sibanda said the university was overwhelmed by demand for places.
He said the university received up to 600 medical school applicants against capacity for just 25 – but this would soon change.
“Per year we have 25 students and we have 100 students in total. We were given that number because we were starting off so we were still being monitored. It’s only this year that we have been accredited as a Medical School and after accreditation we have been allowed to increase the intake to 60 students starting in January,” said Prof Sibanda.
He said increased enrolment figures will result in Zimbabwe reducing the doctor to patient ratio.
Prof Sibanda said NUST would still limit the number of doctors being trained in order to produce quality graduands.
“The level of demand is very high and the candidates are very highly qualified. Therefore, if we expand these services, we should be able to offer more. There is a World Health Organisation recommended ratio of patient to doctor and we can achieve that if we train more doctors. We want to train specialists as well so that as a country we provide specialist services,” he said.
The delegation of Iranian specialists consisted of a dermatologist, paediatrician, urologist, ophthalmologist, gynaecologist, otolaryngologist, pharmacist, orthopaedic and a surgeon.
“We are pleased to host a delegation of 12 specialists from Iran. We were notified about their presence yesterday by the Ministry of Health and Child Care. We are quite happy to host them and learn from them as we share experiences. We want as a young university to work together with for example University of Tehran which is about 600-years-old. They have a lot of experience and as such we will benefit a lot by working with them,” said Prof Sibanda.
Iranian surgeon Prof Mahdi Mesgarani Torghabeh said they were looking forward to working with the NUST Medical School, particularly in specialist training of medical students.
“We can work to make it better in different specialties and we talked about this with our colleagues but the Ministry of Health and Child Care and our embassy will give direction on the way forward,” said Prof Torghabeh. – The Herald
