History and Services
The Faculty of Medicine was established in 1973, and has since developed into an internationally recognized medical school, serving Kuwait and the Gulf region. Its student strength has grown from 48 students in 1976, to the current enrolment level of 105 students in 2012. Since the start of the program, 1,775 students have graduated and have been awarded the Bachelor’s Degree in Medicine & Surgery. The faculty offers a seven-year medical program, and currently has 607 students on roll, in addition to 500 academic, technical and administrative staff.
The Faculty is organized into several departments, which include: Anatomy, Biochemistry, Community Medicine & Behavioral Science, Medicine, Microbiology, Nuclear Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Pediatrics, Pathology, Pharmacology & Toxicology, Physiology, Psychiatry, Radiology and Surgery. The Faculty’s teaching hospital is Mubarak Al-Kabeer. In addition to facilities at Al-Amiri, Al-Adan, Maternity, Farwaniya, Jahra, Ahmadi,Sabah, Chest Diseases, Al-Razi, Psychiatric and Ibn Sina hospitals, includes several polyclinics throughout
Kuwait.
The academic staff and students have access to high quality facilities for teaching and research, comparable to distinguished and well established institutions elsewhere in the world. These include sophisticated labs, equipment and technology resources. Professional services are offered to the Ministry of Public Health,including consultative services to various hospitals involving sophisticated diagnostic tests and specialized procedures, such as therapeutic drug monitoring, toxicology screening, personal and genetic treatment. Seminars and workshops are organized for
The medical community and various courses offered to students of the faculties of Allied Health Sciences, Pharmacy and Dentistry. The Faculty offers undergraduate degrees in Bachelor of Medical Sciences (B.Med.Sc.), and Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (B.M.,B.Ch.). The Faculty has started applying a new integrated system of academic curriculum, since 2005. This system involved revision of first year’s curriculum (introductory) by integrating requisite health sciences courses, which are taught by Health Sciences Centre Faculty members.
The academic curriculum and Research Activities
The academic curriculum is divided into three phases; the first phase extends over the first two semesters of the preclinical program. The second phase covers semesters 3 to 8 of the medical curriculum. The second phase curriculum was designed to focus on the student, and to encourage self-learning. In this phase, the students are taught the science of infection, immunology, blood, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, endocrinology musculoskeletal system, nervous system, breast, renal and reproductive system and digestive system. In addition, the students study foundation courses for 28 weeks in basic medical sciences at the beginning of second phase.
The most important part of the second phase is teaching students in small groups, and holding classes focused on problem based learning (PBL). In addition, students attend clinical skills labs, with concentration on clinical applications. They also do clinical rotation in the hospitals once in a week.
On successful completion of the second phase, the student is admitted to the third phase. The duration of this clinical phase is three years. All those students who successfully pass the second phase, are awarded with the Bachelor’s Degree in Basic Medical Sciences (B.Med.Sc.), which is a mandatory requirement for admission into the clinical program (third phase). During the three clinical years, students are trained in various departments, including the outpatient department of the teaching hospital where they deal with society.
Towards the end of the third clinical year (final year), the students spend a period of ten weeks in Medicine and Surgery, as pre-interns. This is a supervised clinical training, where they carry out all responsibilities of an intern, but under the supervision of Faculty Staff. The Faculty has established a special lab to train the final year students on manikins to do several medical procedures. A clinical skills lab, to be used for teaching of both Phase II and Phase III students, will be constructed soon.
The GPA of students is counted towards obtaining the Bachelor’s degree in Medicine & Surgery based on their performance during the whole seven years.
The new curriculum primarily focuses on self-learning and students training in clinical skills at an early stage. Each part of the new curriculum has clear goals to develop behavioral skills based on acquisition of knowledge, skills and clinical applications. The Faculty offers graduate MSc programs in Anatomy, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Pathology, Physiology, Nuclear Medicine, Child Health and Pharmacology. In addition, departments offer doctoral program in Microbiology, Physiology and Pathology. Faculty has developed a new Master’s program in Biomedical Sciences to allow high caliber medical students of Faculty of Medicine to have a M.Sc. degree by the time they complete the B.M., B.Ch. program. This program runs in parallel to their clinical years. This has been submitted to the University. Faculty is in the process of establishing a Ph.D. program in clinical disciplines. A proposal has already been submitted to the University to establish a Ph.D. program in Nuclear Medicine. This program is aimed at the medical graduates. Master of Public Health (MPH) program is in the final stages of approval from Kuwait University.
Research activity at the Faculty of Medicine is measurable in terms of the total number of ongoing and under-process projects during an academic year (September through August), based on faculty members and graduate students research participation. Numerically, the volume of research exceeds over 100 projects in any given year. The sustenance of faculty research is attributable to fiscal and resource support by way of grants provided by Kuwait University Research Administration as well as other governmental bodies and institutions, in addition to state-of-the-art facilities, world-class labs and equipment resources to facilitate implementation of research. Cumulatively the fiscal support availed by the faculty reached approximately two million Kuwaiti Dinars ($7,000,000) during the year 2012/11, providing the basis for the generation of a large number of published papers in distinguished journals of international repute and standing, accounting for as many as 700 published papers during the last six calendar years, 2005 to 2010, averaging 100 to 150 papers each calendar year.
Publications and CME activities
The Faculty also holds a weekly symposium for open scientific discussions based on scientific studies of faculty members or experts from outside Kuwait University. The Faculty also organizes the Annual Poster Conference based on the scientific activity of the Health Sciences Centre (HSC) faculties and staff, displaying their research results in the form of posters. The poster conference is of three days duration, and generally held during the second week of May. In addition, the Faculty also hosts and supports several major and minor conferences, symposia and workshops.
Awards and recognition
The members of faculty of medicine from Kuwait University have won several awards i.e. more than 25 on account of publishing best papers, best teacher award, best clinical teacher award, academy award etc... . The university has won an award for the best FIHQ from Brazil for their distinguished research. Special honors were also received for their faculty regionally and internationally for their active involvement in the field of medicine.
Faculty of Medicine, Kuwait University given its outstanding contributions towards the quality higher education with innovative curriculum and approach, internationally competitive research and provision of excellent clinical services to the Arab world, deserves to be presented the Hamdan Award for Medical College/Institute in the Arab World.
