First cohort of QU medical graduates joins HMC medical residency programme

A group of 42 graduate doctors from the first cohort of Qatar University's College of Medicine (QU CMED) has been selected to join Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) to complete their postgraduate medical residency training.

The first batch graduated in May 2021 after completing a six-year undergraduate medical programme, a significant milestone for Qatar, and a big achievement for the medical faculty and students.The postgraduate medical residency training is part of the educational journey of graduating doctors in order to become highly specialised and independent medical practitioners.Prof Dr Egon Toft, dean, QU CMED, explained that this first group of graduate doctors is a significant achievement for the country, Qatar University and for everyone involved in the development of one of the region’s foremost medical education providers. “Our programme is rooted in the specific needs of the Qatari society and well aligned with national strategies and priorities in healthcare education. Our College is driven by passionate dedicated faculty, including many expert clinical faculty from HMC, which helps attract promising and highly competitive students.”Medical school teaches physicians a broad range of medical knowledge, basic clinical skills, and supervised experience practicing medicine in a variety of fields; however medical residency provides in-depth training within a specific branch of medicine. It is therefore essential to have a highly established clinical facility to provide accredited clinical teaching opportunities for the training period of between four and six years where residents can specialise in a medical or surgical specialty.Dr Abdullatif al-Khal, deputy chief medical officer and director of medical education at HMC explained that as an accredited teaching institution, HMC is well-established in both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education and is highly suited for medical graduates from QU and Cornell to complete their residency and fellowship training. “We are proud to welcome the inaugural graduating class to HMC. The selected students are already very familiar with our clinical sites as they have been undertaking clinical clerkship rotations in various facilities from the fourth year of medical school and will therefore help contribute to patient care early on,” said Dr al-Khal. “These graduates and future cohorts will become the backbone of Qatar’s healthcare delivery system, as part of a locally-developed and trained clinical workforce, equipped to deal with Qatar’s future healthcare needs.” The process for admission to HMC’s residency programmes is highly competitive, with nearly 1,300 applications being received annually for approximately 170 available seats. The QU graduates met the same rigourous enrollment criteria similar to top international applicants, which includes exceptional performance on the internationally standardised clinical knowledge exam. The selection was completed in July 2021.“We are also delighted to have collaborated with the College of Medicine to help encourage more home-grown talents to take up medicine. While the medical graduates represent 10 different nationalities, one third are Qatari nationals; and female students make up nearly 67% of all graduates, indicating the strong interest in medicine among female students,” added Dr al-Khal.HMC is the first healthcare system in the region to achieve prestigious institutional accreditation by the ACGME International LLC (www.acgme-i.org). To date, 14 of HMC’s residency training programmes and nine subspecialty fellowship programmes have successfully achieved ACGME International LLC programme accreditation. QU Medical College graduates were assigned to residency programmes in 13 different specialties, including Anaesthesiology, Community Medicine, Dermatology, Diagnostic Radiology, Emergency Medicine, Family Medicine, General Surgery, Internal Medicine, Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Paediatrics, Plastic Surgery and Psychiatry.