By the Executive Dean

Dear Colleagues,

The start of the academic year 2017/18 finds the Medical School in a good position. Only six years after our foundation, we are now an international academic community comprising over 1000 members: 650 students from over 58 countries; 120 full-time staff and faculty; 280 part-time faculty members; offices in Chicago, New York, and Sydney; and clinical affiliations and partnerships in Cyprus, the US, Israel, and the UK. We have graduated three classes of doctors and we are very proud of their successes, having secured training positions in some of the best hospitals in the world (Harvard-Massachusetts General Hospital, John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, University College London Hospital, Sheba Medical Center, the American University of Beirut, etc.).

This is just the beginning of a long and creative journey, and by the end of the first decade of the School (2021) we hope to move into a new purpose-built facility. We will be producing detailed draft plans this academic year, and we will ask for feedback from students, staff and faculty, as we hope to deliver a state-of-the-art building, which is environmentally friendly and addresses the needs of this academic community. It will be a landmark building for Nicosia, and it will serve as our base for education, research, clinical work (primary care centre), inter-professional learning, and community engagement for many decades to come.  The below architectural design depicts Phases A and B of the Medical School Building.

During the past academic year, we have designed new postgraduate programmes for delivery: in early September our Postgraduate Clinical Training programme began at Limassol General Hospital with 12 trainees who graduated in May 2017 with the St George’s MBBS. The programme operates under GMC approval and with sponsorship from the South Thames Foundation School; upon successful completion, our postgraduate clinical trainees will receive full registration by the GMC. The MSc in Family Medicine has been reaccredited by the Royal College of General Practitioners to deliver the MRCGP (INT) exam. This fall, the Master’s in Public Health will go through accreditation review by DIPAE (Cyprus Quality Assurance Body) and we aim to offer it by early 2018 for online delivery.  A Master’s degree in Health Services Administration has been developed as an online award and has received both Senate and Council approval. It will be submitted to DIPAE for accreditation by December 2017, with the aim of offering it from September 2018.

We have also put together structures that will further support research activities at the School, including the establishment of the Cyprus Medical Research Institute as a non-profit foundation. This will be the research arm of the School, housing several research centres, such as the Centre for Paediatric Oncology, Haematology and Immunology, the Centre of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, the Neurosciences Centre and Centre for Population Health, among others. To support the work of these centres through gifts, we are in the process of registering in the US the Friends of the CMRI, as a tax-exempt organisation, headed by the President of the Cyprus Federation of America, and we will organise our first fundraising events in the new academic year.

These accomplishments and initiatives are a credit to our academic community, composed of committed professionals and talented students. They represent only a few of a long list of initiatives, and more information and updates will be communicated throughout the academic year.

 

Welcome to the new academic year 2017-18.