Int’l accreditation for UG Dentistry programme on the horizon - evaluation to commence next week

Int’l accreditation for UG Dentistry programme on the horizon – evaluation to commence next week

Mar 13, 2018 News

Dean of the Faculty of Health
Sciences, Dr. Emanuel Cummings

Moves have been set in motion for the international accreditation of the Dentistry programme at the University of Guyana [UG]. In fact according to information coming out of the national university, an evaluation of the programme is set to commence as soon as next week.
This development has been confirmed by Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Dr. Emanuel Cummings.
Tasked with accrediting the dentistry programme is the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions [CAAM-HP]. The Jamaica-based institution is the legally constituted body established in 2003 under the aegis of Caricom. It is, moreover, empowered to determine and prescribe standards and to accredit programmes of medical, dental, veterinary and other health professions education on behalf of the contracting parties in Caricom.
Currently, Dr. Cummings disclosed, CAAM-HP has been catering to three main programmes – Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and Dentistry. After suffering a loss of its accreditation for failure to ensure that requisite measures were in place, UG was last year able to regain international accreditation for its Medicine programme. It was even then the Dean had shared his hope that UG would continue to benefit from the preparations that were undertaken for the accreditation of the Medicine programme.
Moreover, Dr. Cummings in an invited comment to this publication said, “we have learnt from the experience of the accreditation of our Medical School, and so we are putting that into play to ensure that the Dental School is accredited too.”
Dean Cummings revealed that already UG has completed and submitted a self study to CAAM-HP. This has allowed CAAM-HP to timetable a physical evaluation date for the university’s facilities. The date set for the commencement of the evaluation is March 18, 2018.
“We are confident that the evaluation will be positive,” an optimistic Dr. Cummings told Kaieteur News.
Among those who have thrown their support behind the efforts to prepare the Dentistry programme for accreditation are the Vice Chancellor, Professor Ivelaw Griffith, who, Dr. Cummings said, has been very supportive, and the entire UG administration.
Government has also been very supportive, and this has manifested itself through the input of the Ministry of Public Health, to ensure various facilities met the requisite standards, said Dr. Cummings.
The Dental School, which was established in 2006, has been graduating about eight students on an annual basis. This development, Dr. Cummings said, has had a significant impact on the delivery of health care since, according to him, “we have graduates who are practising in most regions across the country.” Currently the Dental School is headed by Dr. Shameer Ali.
But according to Dr. Cummings, there is still need to have dentists trained and dispatched to Regions that are still in need of more of these skilled professionals. The regions that have exhibited a need for dentists are: Regions Four, Five, Six and 10, according to Dr. Cummings.
Recognising the need for the programme to be internationally accredited, Dr. Cummings said that a number of key persons, including himself and Dr. Joanes Jean, who has been lending monumental support to the Dental programme at the tertiary institution, were in the forefront of putting needful measures in place. The late Dr. Ovid Isaacs, according to Dean Cummings, was also instrumental in setting things in motion for international accreditation.
“The Dental School has come a far way and we are hoping to have it also accredited in the near future,” said Dr. Cummings.