Medical students to get external examiners

HUYE – Students completing medical school at the National University of Rwanda will for the first time be examined by external examiners, the dean of the Faculty of Medicine has said. In an interview with The New Times, Dr Julien Gashegu said the introduction of external examiners will help put the medical school qualifications on the same standard with other universities. “We want to make sure that our medical doctors are at the same level with those from other universities in the world,” he said. Students will be assessed in four disciplines, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, surgery and internal medicine. “For each field, we will have two external examiners, one from an East African university and another from South Africa, if we fail to get one from these regions, we shall then get those from Europe and America,” said Gashegu. According to Gashegu, using external examiners is common in many Universities but has not been the tradition at NUR. “If we want to have the same standards with other universities then we need to have the same common practices, including the use of external examiners,” he added. The final exam is slated for January next year. Ends