DOHA: This month, Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Medical Education Department welcomed students attending Qatar University’s College of Medicine to orientation sessions aimed at enabling them to find out more about Qatar’s largest healthcare provider.
The orientation sessions provided medical students with an opportunity to visit some of HMC’s clinical sites, and more broadly, helped to stimulate their interest in potential specialties as they begin their medical school journey.
In total, one hundred medical students attended the orientation sessions, which were held over two days. The programme included a visit to HMC’s Medical Education Center followed by talks from Dr Abdullatif Al Khal, HMC’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs at Qatar University, Dr Yousef Maslamani, Medical Director of Hamad General Hospital, and Maitha Al Bouainain, Executive Director of Community Affairs and Patient Engagement at Hamad General Hospital.
The students learned about HMC as an organisation, and specifically its role as the main provider of secondary and tertiary healthcare in Qatar. They were given an overview of HMC’s twelve hospitals and national ambulance service and were provided with information on the organisation’s many academic accreditations and programs, including the Qatar Organ Donation programme.
The formal sessions were followed by a visit to eight clinical areas in Hamad General Hospital, with small groups of five or six students rotating across each area.
Dr Al Khal, who is also Director of Medical Education at Hamad Medical Corporation, highlighted the importance of both introducing students to Qatar’s largest public healthcare provider and giving them a more accurate perception of the lifestyle and work they can expect if they choose a given specialty.
“We have a close working relationship with the College of Medicine at Qatar University and are pleased to have the opportunity to welcome Qatar’s future doctors to HMC. It is extremely important that the medical students appreciate how important they are to HMC and to Qatar. The opportunity to take part in these orientation sessions enables the students to meet clinicians at their future clinical training site, ask any questions they may have, and learn more about what a career as a doctor entails,” said Dr. Al Khal.
The students participating in the orientation sessions were joined by senior representatives from Qatar University’s College of Medicine.
Professor Egon Toft, Vice-President for Medicine and Health and Dean of the College of Medicine, participated and reinforced the importance of the orientation sessions.
“HMC’s Medical Education Department and Qatar University’s College of Medicine have worked together very effectively to provide students about to embark upon a career in medicine with the opportunity to attend orientation sessions at HMC. The feedback from these sessions has been extremely positive,” he said recently.
Our students have observed what it means to work as a clinician across a number of specialties and also what they can expect from their chosen career. This is a unique opportunity which our students found to be extremely valuable,” Professor Toft added.
