| Two years after opening its full medical faculty and less than a year after taking possession of a state-of-the-art teaching complex, the Cave Hill campus has received more than 600 applications from prospective medical students from across the globe for its 50-odd places.
Sources yesterday confirmed the overwhelming response to the campus’ global marketing programme, while principal Sir Hilary Beckles described it as the result of a very deliberate and structured outreach programme.
While the teaching of undergraduate medical students at Cave Hill was new, Sir Hilary said, medical teaching there dated back 45 years, with the campus developing an enviable reputation for outstanding faculty and graduate research that have significantly improved health delivery in the Caribbean.
With solid support from outstanding local professors such as Mickey Walrond, Trevor Hassle and Henry Fraser, medical teaching grew and attracted world-class professionals from leading institutions in the United States and Europe, he added.
“In essence, very systematically we have been able to build an international team of medical professors, a phenomenal cadre of medical expertise that has caused Cave Hill to stand out…
“Therefore, once we took the decision to include undergraduates in the Medical Faculty at Cave Hill, it was only natural that we market the excellent product we were offering internationally — in European, North American and African journals… The Director of our International Office, Dr. [Anthony] Fisher travelled all over the world marketing Cave Hill and it is all paying off.”
Sir Hilary, who had been on leave in recent weeks, explained that he was aware that significant interest had also been generated among potential students from across the region, including Trinidad and Tobago.
Asked how the cost of a medical education in Barbados compared with Jamaica and Trinidad, Sir Hilary said while the University of the West Indies was striving for parity of costs across its campuses, Barbados was still about “two to three percentage points above” Mona and St. Augustine.
“But there is a very simple reason for that. The medical faculties at Mona and St. Augustine were set up with government grants, money that they did not have to repay,” Sir Hilary said.
“The medical faculty at Cave Hill was set up with a commercial loan. It was guaranteed by the Government of Barbados, but we have to pay it back… But what we can say is that the difference in dollars a student has to pay is more than compensated for in terms of the dynamic environment, the state-of-the-art facilities, the sense of comfort and safety and all the added value that Barbados brings. And certainly the response from applicants shows clearly that this is not lost on prospective students.”
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Professor Henry Fraser, in an interview ahead of the opening of the new complex at Cave Hill late last year, in explaining how Barbados would benefit from the fulexpansion said:
“In a sense this is a dream come through because it will allow the QEH to strengthen its training programmes at all levels. This means we will be able to attract medical students from the rest of the Caribbean. We will strengthen our post-graduate programmes, which will train the specialists we need in areas like cardiology and psychiatry and orthopaedics … (Barbados Today) |
