UG confident with Medical School’s push for accreditation

Sep 18, 2016 News

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Dr Ivelaw Griffith, has said that he is comfortable with the position the UG medical school is in with respect to being re-accredited by the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in

UG’s Vice-Chancellor,
Dr. Ivelaw Griffith

Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP).
Griffith said last Friday during a media conference at the Education Lecture Theatre that there are certain conditions which have to be met before the school is reaccredited. “I am very confident that we would have met some of those conditions. We are working to improve some of the physical facilities
He said that the medical school had suffered some setbacks when a minor fire in the building caused some degree of damage. As a result, classes had to be cancelled and classrooms relocated until the necessary repairs were done.
“We are moving progressively to organize and deliver a better curriculum. We are working to ensure that we tighten the clinical arrangement between the University of Guyana and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation and the other clinical relationships that we have.”
According to Dr Griffith, he believes that UG is well along the journey to being reaccredited. He admitted that the university has not met all the conditions necessary but said that there is institutional intention and plan to arrive at that place where the medical school needs to be.
He said that he had asked for the creation of a supplementary budget to be made since it was realised the university could not finish the year on what it was allocated from the 2016 budget.
The university has since made a request for $225M; he said that the Cabinet and the National Assembly approved $180M. According to the VC a substantial amount of that sum was directed towards getting the medical school back on track.
The accreditation of the school was revoked last year following a visit by the CAAM-HP. During that visit it was revealed that a number of recommendations to improve the institution were not adhered to.
Due to this, graduates from the school had to sit the Caribbean Association of Medical Councils (CAMC) examination in order to use their degrees outside of Guyana.
It was once questioned whether the fees to do the programme needs to be addressed. The tuition per year at the school is set at US$4,000 whereas around the region fees are either US$10,000 or US$20,000.
The CAAM-HP is expected to conduct a site visit next month to make an assessment on the state of the institution’s medical school to determine whether its accreditation can be renewed.

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