The school of Medicine and Paramedical Studies is yet another   milestone   that   Fins Medical    University    is     undertaking to further increase access to quality education in the country. With a state of the art infrastructure nearing completion where over ten different laboratories are being installed, the school will be one of its kind in the country and the region at large. The school will be home to various academic programmes such as the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, Bachelor of Pharmacy, Bachelor of Environmental Health Sciences, Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Technology, Bachelor of Health Services Management among others all of which are aimed at ensuring that highly qualified professionals are produced to fit the gap in the human resource for health. With collaboration with various institutions from across the world, there is no doubt that the year 2023 will be a year of great transformation in the health education landscape.

We continue to makes partnerships with institutions and organizations from across the world for purposes of enhancing education as well as promoting knowledge exchange as well as advancing collaborations. The University has a Memorandum of Understanding with Knowledge from Change which is a UK based organization under the University of Salford. Student exchange programmes as well as academic staff exchanges are organized under this partnership. We have also established a memorandum of understanding with Amalthea Trust which is a Biomedical Engineering company based in the UK with a purpose of facilitating biomedical skilling of our students. Students who are trained at FMU are not only equipped with knowledge and skills in Health Sciences but also skills in the management of hospital equipment including simple repairs. A modern health worker is one who should be able to find a solution within the shortest possible time. Because of the nature of health workers as people who deal with tools and equipment, knowledge of how the various equipment’s operate is very important.

At the local and national levels, we have established partnerships with different health facilities, corporations and local governments with the aim of expanding our practical training facilities.

We have established a modern teaching Hospital   which   is    not    only    providing the students with the modern learning experiences but also providing quality medical services to the population. The teaching hospital is supplemented with many other medical facilities which are used for training. In addition, since our training is practice based, a number of laboratories such as the Anatomy lab, Physiology lab, Biochemistry lab, Hematology lab, Pharmacy lab among many others have been established. At the times where the whole country was engulfed with fear and uncertainty, we decided to open the Hospital on the 15th of June 2021 which was the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. By doing so, we were acting in line with our motto which states “saving lives, our passion!” At that moment, we even offered the entire institution to be used in case the region got overwhelmed by the number of covid-19 positive cases. By God’s grace and times response from the government coupled with the positive response from the population, we managed to defeat the pandemic. At a time when health facilities were charging hundreds of millions to covid-19 patients, we managed to treat our people and charged reasonable fares. To us, this is the reason Fins Medical University was established in this region and we are very grateful to the founders for such a consideration.

A 21st century health worker can only be produced by an institution which has adopted 21st century ways of training. At Fins Medical University, we train our students to address challenges of the 21st century.

I congratulate all those who have completed their programmes and invite the rest whose dream is to become health science professionals.

May God bless you all.

Ruhweza Patrick

University Secretary