Six years · Accredited by the Ghana Medical and Dental Council · University of Cape Coast, North Campus and Cape Coast Teaching Hospital
The decision that shaped this programme
In August 2005, the founding Dean of this School reviewed the curriculum he had been handed and sent it back.
It needed rebuilding, he argued, around four things: the student, the community, integration across subjects, and the problem rather than the lecture. The revised proposal went back through the Academic Board, the University Council, the National Council for Tertiary Education and the National Accreditation Board.
The pioneering students matriculated in January 2008. In August 2013 the first forty two doctors graduated and were sworn in by the Medical and Dental Council of Ghana.
More than 700 doctors have now qualified from this School.
That founding decision still determines how this programme runs.
How you will learn
Problem based learning from year two
From second year, you work in small groups on real clinical problems. You identify what you do not know, go and find it, and bring it back to the group. A dedicated Problem Based Learning unit supports this across every department.
This is a different discipline from memorising lecture notes. It is also closer to what the job actually asks of you.
Patient simulation before real patients
The School’s clinical skills facility includes SimMan 3G Plus, a high fidelity patient simulator that breathes, bleeds, responds to drugs and deteriorates under your hands.
You will manage cardiac arrest, obstetric haemorrhage and anaphylaxis under pressure. You will get things wrong. Nobody is harmed while you learn.
Community Based Experience and Service
COBES is a unit in its own right at this School, not an elective bolted on at the end.
You will spend structured periods living and working in Ghanaian communities, running health outreaches and studying disease at population level. You will see how income, water, distance and family determine whether someone recovers.
A doctor who has only seen illness inside a teaching hospital has seen the end of the story. COBES shows you the beginning.
Where you will train
Teaching takes place on the University’s North Campus and at Cape Coast Teaching Hospital.
The hospital relationship is deliberate and long standing. In June 2009 the School signed a joint agreement with what was then the Central Regional Hospital, the Central Regional Health Administration and Ghana Health Service to use it as the main clinical teaching site. Its status was later raised to a Teaching Hospital through the University’s advocacy.
The structure
The MB ChB is an integrated programme. That was the founding Dean’s central requirement in 2005, and it is not a label. Subjects are not taught as sealed blocks that finish before the next one starts.
The six years are organised into two cycles.
- Cycle 1 — Years 1 to 3
- Cycle 2 — Years 4 to 6
Cycle 1 has a clear shape. The basic sciences run through all three years. Problem based learning and patient simulation begin in second year and run alongside them, continuing through the rest of the programme.
Because the curriculum is integrated, disciplines run across the cycle boundary rather than stopping at it. Pharmacology and pathology, for example, run from third year through to fifth year, spanning both cycles.
COBES placements run across both cycles.
Clinical training takes place principally at Cape Coast Teaching Hospital.
Entry requirements
You need credit passes in six subjects.
- Core — English Language, Core Mathematics, Integrated Science
- Electives — Biology, Chemistry, and either Physics or Elective Mathematics
Every subject counted in your aggregate must be C6 or better under WASSCE, or D or better under SSSCE.
Medicine is among the most competitive programmes at this University, and meeting the minimum is not the same as being competitive. Cut off points move each year with the strength of the applicant pool. The current figures are published at admissions.ucc.edu.gh.
Applying with a degree
Graduates may be considered for entry with advanced standing. You must have:
- graduated in a science related discipline with at least Second Class Lower Division, and
- offered the Science programme at senior high school.
Both conditions apply. Contact the School to discuss your eligibility before purchasing a voucher.
Fees
Fees are set by the University and reviewed each academic year, with separate rates for Ghanaian and international students and separate residential charges.
For the current MB ChB fee schedule, contact the Admissions Office at admissions@ucc.edu.gh or the School at info@uccsms.edu.gh.
Seventeen departments and three units
Departments — Anatomy and Cell Biology, Anaesthesia and Pain Management, Chemical Pathology, Community Medicine, Haematology, Internal Medicine and Therapeutics, Medical Biochemistry, Medical Education and Information Technology, Medical Imaging, Microbiology and Immunology, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Pathology, Paediatrics and Child Health, Pharmacology, Physiology, Psychological Medicine and Mental Health, Surgery.
Units — Community Based Experience and Service (COBES), Maersk Clinical Skills Unit, Problem Based Learning (PBL).
After you qualify
Graduates proceed to housemanship and then to full registration as medical practitioners with the Ghana Medical and Dental Council.