The Faculty of Medicine at King Abdul Aziz University was established in 1975. It has 23 departments in addition to administrative and operational units. The employees exceed 550 faculty members and 400 administration and technical employees.
The faculty has more than 2000 male and female students and 290 exchange students from international universities. In addition, over 3330 physicians have graduated from the faculty since its inception. The faculty rank is 126-150 for clinical, pre-clinical, and health in World University Rankings in Times Higher Education and adopted the latest scientific methods in teaching and a developed scientific curriculum to graduate doctors with international standards under the supervision of a selection of faculty members. The faculty is guided by the values of Altruism, Accountability, Devotion, Cooperation, Ambition, and Moderation, as a commitment to providing leading educational programs, fostering scientific research and community engagement, and being the Benchmark for Medical Academic Excellence in the Middle East.
The faculty provides basic and clinical undergraduate studies designed to serve the faculty's aims and objectives and comply with the general medical education framework and the global requirements for student-centered education. In addition to the departments for basic and clinical studies, the faculty has special scientific and support units such as the talent and creativity support unit, the student research assessment unit, and the community service unit, among many others. The faculty offers many postgraduate programs; 13 Master's and Doctoral programs, 23 Saudi Specialization Certificate programs, and 25 Fellowship programs.
The administration is currently implementing plans to improve the educational processes and to keep pace with global development through many partnerships and agreements with international universities in Europe and North America.
To serve the scientific research objectives, the faculty provides financial support for the researchers who publish in high-impact international journals. Moreover, the faculty invites international intellectuals to participate in research excellence activities to serve national health issues. These efforts have brought about the publishing of 2200 scientific articles and 575 papers published by the students under the supervision of their mentors.
The King Abdul Aziz University Hospital (KAUH) is a part of the Faculty of Medicine and was inaugurated in 1976 with a total capacity of 200 beds. It moved to the new medical center in 1995, which became a landmark in the medical field, not only within the Kingdom but also in the Middle East. Through the support of officials and university staff, it became the largest tertiary hospital in the western region of KSA, with the latest technologies, staffed with 4000 healthcare providers, a total of 1067 beds, 100 critical care beds, 170 outpatient Clinics, and 23 operation rooms.
KAUH has been accredited by the Joint Commission International, the American association of blood banks, the college of American pathologists, the Diamond Canadian Accreditation International three times, and many others. The undergraduate program received the Education & Training Commission accreditation. The clinical skills and simulation center also received Canadian Accreditation and the International Society of Simulation in healthcare in America accreditation.
The Faculty of Medicine at King Abdul Aziz University made outstanding contributions towards higher education with an innovative curriculum and approach, internationally competitive research, and excellent clinical services to the Arab World. Therefore, it deserves to be presented with the Hamdan Award for the best Medical College, Institute or Centre in the Arab World for the term 2021 – 2022.
