School of Medicine
Building a healthy Congo
Dr. Samuel Mampunza heads this new school, which was launched with a preparatory year in 2006 with 200 students. Year one involves intensive English, physics, chemistry, and biology. Students also begin their medical training.
For the 2008-09 Academic Year, we have 229 students in the prep year; 193 students in their 1st year of pre-med; and 138 students in their 2nd year of pre-med, for a total of 560 students.
- The average life expectancy is declining in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- In the Fall of 2007, an Ebola outbreak ravaged an area in the Kasai Occidental Province with numerous deaths and hundreds stricken with disease.
- A study released in November 2008, declared Congo the worst country on earth to be a child.
- In the Fall of 2008, violence has again broken in Eastern Congo where the border is shared with Uganda and Rwanda.
- From late August to Thanksgiving 2008, some 250,000 to 300,000 new refugees have been created as villages have been overrun by rival organizations.
The launch of this vitally needed Medical School could not have come too soon.
The long term intent of the Medical School is:
- All medical students will undergo their internships and residencies at hospitals in Congo’s Rural Health Zones.
- Scholarship-supported students will sign contracts further obligating them to work at least two years in a rural hospital or clinic upon graduation.
- Degrees will not be conferred until the obligation has been met.
- English classes. French is the language of instruction, but a strong English program increases the breadth of study. The library contains a significant percentage of books in that language.
- Both the English and computer programs are receiving increased emphasis in order to support instruction at the new School of Medicine.
These photographs show the equipment arriving and our first class of Medical students using the new lab equipment.
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