Medicine is a field that requires lifelong learning. Healthcare professionals are constantly expected to remain relevant and continue providing safe and effective patient care. This echoes  the goal of RCSI & UCD Malaysia Campus (RUMC), the foreign branch campus of leading universities in Ireland which is to maintain the international reputation for the quality of its graduates.

Located on the island where a UNESCO World Heritage Site sits, RUMC, formerly known as Penang Medical College, is the epitome of excellence in medical education since 1996 and is the proud alma mater for nearly 2,000 medical graduates who are currently practicing in various countries around the world. RUMC is well-known for delivering an internationally-recognized Irish medical education with invaluable experience from the best of both worlds.

An Immersive Learning Experience in Ireland

One of the key takeaways of RUMC’s medical degree is the unique delivery of the programme that is conducted in Ireland and Malaysia. Students begin their journey in Medicine by doing Pre-Clinical Years in Dublin at either the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) or University College Dublin (UCD).

“The combination of pre-clinical training in Dublin for half of the programme and moving to excellent clinical training facilities in Penang is a great mix of both worlds,” said Professor Hannah McGee, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, RCSI.

This transnationally-delivered programme also enables our students to gain an immersive learning experience as they study along with people from different academic backgrounds and nationalities.

UCD’s Dean and Head of School of Medicine, Professor Michael Keane shared that “Students from RUMC bring with them an academic, cultural and social diversities that enriches and enlivens the fabric of the university.”

“Moving abroad is a first for many but being independent in a new environment and learning new cultures and perspectives from people, not only in Ireland but all over the world definitely helped develop my people skills and shape who I am today,” said Dr Megat Kamaruzaman when asked about his pre-clinical experience in Dublin. Dr Megat is currently a practicing Fertility Specialist, at Sims IVF, a fertility clinic in Dublin, Ireland.

High-Quality Clinical Training in Malaysia

As our students progress into their Clinical Years in the later part of the programme, they receive exclusive access to high-quality training hospitals in Penang. RUMC students are the only medical students training at the Penang General Hospital and Seberang Jaya Hospital. This creates a high ratio of patient beds to student numbers which provides them with a better opportunity to effectively deal with patients.

“The sole access to training hospitals in Penang was an added advantage to our clinical training journey. Besides that, RUMC students have a very good reputation among the training hospitals that we went to and this helped us really well in adapting to the clinical training on a daily basis,” shared Dr Ganesan Palaniappan from the class of 2013 in an alumni webinar held last month. Dr Ganesan is now serving the role of a medical registrar at Hospital
Kuala Lumpur (HKL).

Throughout the clinical training here, students are also nurtured to become professional and patient-centred medical doctors who will establish a successful doctor-patient relationship in their medical careers. This distinctive structure of our Medicine programme gives the local students a smooth transition into their housemanship in Malaysia and a well-rounded clinical exposure for international students who will be doing the internship in their home countries later on.