EVOLUTION OF UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION IN BRUNEI DARUSSALAM.
Divya Thirumalai RAJAM1, Fazean Irdayati IDRIS1, Nurolaini KIFLI1, Khadizah H. ABDUL- MUMIN1,2, Glenn HARDAKER3.
1PAPRSB Institute of Health Sciences, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, BE1410, Brunei Darussalam.
2School of Nursing and Midwifery, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC 3086, Australia.
3Centre for Lifelong Learning, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, BE1410, Brunei Darussalam.
BACKGROUND
The establishment of a localised medical programme will increase the number of future doctors for the country. Additionally, this will improve the quality of education, through locally trained doctors, leading to better health care for the population. Our article reports the developmental transitions of medical education in Brunei Darussalam, which are derived from our experiences as curriculum developers and observers. This is supported by internal university documented resources such as: reports, historical perspectives from local journals and university documents. The aim of this article is to highlight the insights of medical education and its developments in Brunei Darussalam.
Medical education in Brunei began with overseas training of students who typically completed their higher secondary school education in the United Kingdom. This followed by a twinning programme, and later an articulated programme with partner medical schools (PMS) across the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong. The aim being to develop a ‘full-fledged’ medical programme in the near future. There have been further milestones achieved in the preparation of medical education, which will be reported in this article.
Correspondence: Divya Thirumalai RAJAM, PAPRSB Institute of Health Sciences, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, BE1410, Brunei Darussalam. Telephone: +673 8991889. Email: divyathirumalairajam@yahoo.com
Brunei Int Med J.2021;17:55-60