After a massive amount of work on the part of many people and organisations, the content of the BDS curriculum for the new Dentistry programme at the University of Malawi College of Medicine has been approved. Peter Chimimba has sent me a photo of the front cover of a bound copy of the curriculum, hot off the press:
The photo below, taken during the National Dental Curriculum Conference in Mangochi in November 2018, includes many of those who participated in the process and whose input has contributed to this success.
One of the immediate results is that the pull-up banners, which advertise the undergraduate courses now on offer at the College of Medicine, have had to be replaced with a new version that includes the Bachelor of Dental Surgery!
The revised banner. The arrow was added by the author!
Now that the curriculum has been approved, the focus of work will shift to student recruitment, with a view to accepting the first cohort of BDS students in August 2019. This work is already underway:
The start of a brand new programme is always challenging in any Higher Education Institution, and there is lots of work to do moving forward. However, the train has left the station and the journey has begun!