The University of Zambia School of Medicine continues to be a prime institution of the Government of the Republic of Zambia in medical education. The School was founded in 1968, primarily to train medical doctors. However, due to pressing national needs in health, new programs were introduced to reflect a response by the school to emerging needs in the Health Sector. In 1975, Post Basic Nursing was introduced to train nursing tutors for Nursing Schools in the country. The programme was upgraded to BSc in 1981 and continued its mandate of producing graduate tutors.
In 2000, the School again responded to National Health needs by opening its doors to new undergraduate programmes in Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Biomedical Sciences and environmental Sciences. Since then we have been producing competent Human Resources in the Health fields mentioned above.
The School experienced tremendous growth and expansion with the introduction of these new programs. This culminated in the University of Zambia (UNZA) Council approving a request by the school to divide into four schools namely: School of Medicine, School of Nursing Sciences, School of Public Health and School of Health Sciences. This was implemented in 2017. The School of Medicine retained its original mandate of training Medical doctors at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
In 2013, the school in conjunction with Chainama College Health Sciences (CCHS) introduced another undergraduate program dedicated to training Clinical Officers in Bachelor of Science in Clinical Medicine. The school has since graduated two cohorts from this program.
The school is running more than twenty (20) post graduate programs in Medicine, Surgery, Paediatrics and Child Health, Obstetrics and Gynaecology disciplines and subspecialties. Through these postgraduate programs, the school has made a tremendous contribution to specialist services in medicine in the country. It is clear the school has grown and made great progress in contributing to human resource in the health sector. From an initial 23 graduates in 1973, increasing to more than 100 medical Doctors per year in 2018.
Our mission “To Provide Relevant, Innovative and Demand-Driven Higher Education for Socio-Economic Development” as we progress towards our broader vision of being “An eminent University Driven by Pursuit of Knowledge, Innovation and Social Responsiveness”. We strive to achieve our mission by adhering to the core values of the University enshrined in Academic Freedom, Excellency, Innovativeness, Eco-Friendliness, Integrity and Equity.
In our quest for excellence in teaching and learning, the school blends didact teaching and bed side clinical teaching and learning as well as group tutorials using modern technologies such as power point presentation and moodle. The Medical Students are exposed to Community Based Education which moulds them to adapt to practice in limited resource setting in rural areas.
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