MUST Medical School welcomes inaugural student cohort

Incoming MUST medical students take their oaths during the opening ceremony

The Faculty of Medicine of the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) will begin teaching its Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree this academic year, becoming the first local institution to offer such a medical degree in Macau.
Nearly 50 students, as well as university management, teaching and administrative staff, and representatives from the government and foreign universities attended an opening ceremony for the course last Friday.
The dean of the new Faculty of Medicine, Manson Fok, welcomed the students at the ceremony and remarked that as pioneers of Macau’s first MBBS program, the white coats worn by the students have a profound meaning.
He said that the white coats they were wearing symbolized professionalism, integrity, purity and perfection, adding that they also symbolize the trust of patients in doctors. Under the supervision of Fok, the student cohort participated in an oath-taking ceremony to uphold these virtues.
A total of 494 applications were received by the university, of which 48 were accepted. With the aim of focusing on nurturing local talent, the university decided to allocate nearly 80% of spots to local students.
The university studied existing program structures from Hong Kong, the U.K. and the U.S. before making the program available. The faculty also made an agreement with Harvard University, allowing MUST to use materials provided by Harvard Medical School.
As Macau is a relatively small city in both population and area, it is disadvantaged by the lack of cases for research and teaching. MUST’s partnership with Harvard is likely to ease this, as access to Harvard HMX courses will be provided to students. These courses bring essential medical concepts to life.
The HMX fundamentals series covers foundation topics in medicine, including physiology, genetics, biochemistry, pharmacology and immunology.
To cope with the development of the medical structure in Macau, the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Specialist Medicine are in a co-supplementary position. The Faculty of Specialist Medicine will be backed by the former, which will supply them with medical school graduates interested in further specialist training.
As part of the ceremony, MUST also signed a Memoranda of Understanding with the faculties of medicine from the University of Lisbon and the University of Porto, as well as Peking University People’s Hospital.
National health officials present at the ceremony encouraged the faculties and students to grab the opportunities available in the Greater Bay Area and the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement. The future of medical education and medicine is bright, the officials emphasized.
The officials also pledged that the mainland would offer the university every support in terms of teaching and research.
MUST’s Faculty of Medicine currently offers programs in public health (PhD and masters level), nursing (masters level), medicine and surgery, and food and nutritional sciences (both bachelor level).
Inaugurated in 2000 as the Faculty of Health Sciences, the faculty was renamed the Faculty of Medicine on March 1, 2019 to account for its pioneering of medical education in Macau.
The Faculty of Medicine is also affiliated with the School of Pharmacy. The University Hospital will be a key internship facility for students from the faculty. Anthony Lam