09/11/2022
Overview
The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) was established in early 1990s, an era that was marked by high-level developments and challenges in the sphere of higher education philosophy, particularly in third world countries which had no option left but to overcome numerous challenges of development; given the scarcity of available resources coupled with the steady increase in population growth – with its great negative impacts on almost all aspects of life, most notably on education and health- in order to meet the needs of our societies ambitious for a better living conditions. Amid all these tough circumstances, the establishment of FMHS was in itself a source of hope to realize its mission of providing outputs that will help to address health problems of the people in Yemen and the region and be a good asset to realize of the vision adopted by the political leadership of this country. Thus, the very first step in setting-up FMHS was a conscious study of the characteristics of our country, its needs and level of resources. The outcomes of that study had shaped the vision which is presented in this profile; most notably, FMHS philosophy and a detailed description of FMHS outputs. We are very grateful to God for the much that we have successfully accomplished and we will continue to achieve more and more with firm steps
The FMHS began with a firm belief in the need to train an integrated health team that, despite the relatively short time-span since it was established, it had become an institution consisting of the following five divisions: the Medical, Nursing, Laboratories, Pharmaceuticals and Dental divisions. The reason for this was two-folded. We believed that this was exactly what the country needed, on one hand; and on the other it was the most appropriate option to make the maximum utilization of our available resources at that time. Later on, having become mature to be further developed in their areas of specializations, two FMHS divisions have evolved into two new independent faculties that have emerged out of FMHS, namely the Faculty of Pharmacy and the Faculty of Dentistry.
It was in the academic year of 1983/1984 that the first group of students was admitted (the Human Medicine Division). This batch of students was trained inside very humble buildings located at the Old Sana’a University campus, where a large part of the Faculty of Science’s labs were used for this training. Then, the design process of the (current) FMHS New Building Construction Project has been done with support from Kuwait. After that, the relevant authorities had studied the project and the designs for this pioneer educational and scientific institution were developed. On February 5th, 1985, the FMHS New Building Construction Project Ex*****on Agreement was signed and the construction works started after that. Finally, after the completion of the construction works, FMHS has moved into its new building in the academic year of 1989/1990. Accordingly, the Human Medicines Division and the Medical Labs Division were moved from the Faculty of Science (building) into the new FMHS building. Worth mentioning here is that up to then 11 batches have been graduated from the Medical Labs Division and that the batch number 12 was the first batch that had graduated from FMHS (new building).
FMHS divisions were expanded to include the Pharmaceuticals Division in 1988, with the first batch graduated from this division consisted of thirty eight students. This was followed by the launch of the Nursing Division in 1989, the first batch of students graduated from this division consisted of thirteen students. Eight years later, a decision was made to establish the Dental Medicine Division as a new FMHS division in the academic year 1997-1998.
In the academic year 2001-2002, a decision was made by means of which two FMHS divisions were upgraded and evolved into two new independent faculties to keep up with the need for development and to give autonomy to different disciplines, in line with what is prevailing in international universities. By this, FMHS has only the following three divisions: the Human Medicine Division, the Laboratories Division and the Nursing Division. This is mainly because these three divisions complement each another.
In the 2001-2002 academic year, a decision was made to convert some of the college's People (Dentistry and pharmacy) to faculties that are in keeping with the need for development and to give autonomy to different disciplines, as in the case of international universities, and the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences includes the Division of Human Medicine and laboratories and nursing being complementary to each other.
In recent years, FMHS has moved rapidly towards modernizing and upgrading its educational programs and teaching methods to keep up with latest higher education developments. This was by creating new Master’s and doctoral degrees programs in several disciplines in basic, applied and clinical Sciences. This has necessitated being more and more open to many scientific research centers both in the east and in the west in order to talk, discuss, share, adapt and upgrade through our contacts and interactions with universities, research centers and knowledge bases in other countries. Furthermore, we are excreting keen efforts to invite visitors and examiners to assess and find out about our scientific abilities and the level of our students – as we have been more active in organizing scientific conferences and joint workshops with several local, regional and international counterpart medical colleges. With all of this, FMHS has not overlooked the capacity development of its esteemed cadre of professors by giving them the opportunity to acquire more new experiences and keep abreast of latest developments in various fields of science and knowledge.
As part of our modern programs, we are actively working towards the implementation of necessary steps to ensure that FMHS outputs and programs are recognized by more and more high-level scientific centers. We are also now excreting further efforts to follow up on the graduates from the three FMHS divisions to continue to improve their level of performance in their work sites through the Continuing Education Programs and through ensuring that the do respect the profession ethics and conditions during their practical work in the field.
