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This article is sponsored by Texila American University College of Medicine (TAUCOM).
Aspiring doctors often consider a range of factors, such as the quality of education, clinical training opportunities, affordability, and global recognition when pursuing a medical degree. In recent years, Guyana has emerged as a compelling destination for medical education, mainly because of the Texila American University College of Medicine (TAUCOM).
With its U.S.-modeled curriculum, clinical rotation options, dual accreditation, and diverse community, Guyana offers a unique and advantageous path for those aiming to excel in the medical field. Here is why you should consider Guyana for your medical education.
Curriculum
TAUCOM in Guyana offers a meticulously designed curriculum that balances rigorous academic coursework with extensive practical training. The Doctor of Medicine (MD) program is structured to provide a solid foundation in medical sciences, followed by immersive clinical experiences.
In the first two years, students focus on core medical sciences such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, and pharmacology. These foundational courses are critical for understanding the human body’s complexities and diseases’ underlying mechanisms. TAUCOM’s state-of-the-art laboratories and modern teaching methodologies ensure that students grasp these subjects effectively, preparing them for more advanced medical education.
The transition to the clinical phase begins in the third year, where students rotate across various specialties, including family and internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and psychiatry. These rotations are more than just an academic requirement—they are foundational to the medical school experience that equips students with the clinical skills and professional competence needed to excel in their careers.
Diverse clinical training
One of the standout features of TAUCOM in Guyana is its clinical rotation program, which allows students to gain experience in both the USA (Arizona) and Guyana. This dual exposure is invaluable, offering a blend of international perspectives and practical training.
In the USA, students work in the hospital in Tucson and affiliated health care facilities, gaining insights into the U.S.-standard medical practices and advanced technologies. This experience enhances their clinical skills and familiarizes them with diverse patient populations and cutting-edge medical innovations.
In Guyana, students encounter a different set of challenges and learning experiences. Working in a resource-limited setting fosters adaptability and problem-solving skills, which are crucial for any modern physician. This environment allows students to develop a deep understanding of global health issues and the ability to provide quality care in varied health care settings.
Combining these diverse experiences prepares TAUCOM graduates to be versatile and competent medical professionals ready to make a global impact.
Approvals and recognition
Texila American University boasts approvals and recognitions from various medical and educational councils, which enhances its reputation and the value of its degrees. Some of the notable recognitions include:
- CAAM-HP: This applies to the MD program offered by TAUCOM.
- ACCM: This accreditation covers all programs offered by TAUCOM.
- Medical Council of Canada (MCC): Recognizes TAU’s medical programs.
- Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG)
- World Directory of Medical Schools (WDMS)
- National Accreditation Council of Guyana (NACG): TAU is registered with the Department of Education in Guyana.
- Medical Council of Guyana (MCG)
- Other Medical Councils: Recognitions from various medical councils, including those in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and South Africa, ensure that TAU graduates can practice medicine around the world.
These accreditations testify to TAUCOM’s ambitious standards and ensure its graduates are recognized globally. These recognitions mean that TAUCOM graduates can pursue medical licensure and practice in numerous countries, including the USA, Canada, and the U.K.
Innovative teaching and learning environment
TAUCOM embraces a student-centered approach to education, fostering an environment that encourages active learning, critical thinking, and collaboration. The university employs various teaching methods, including traditional lectures, case-based learning, and simulation-based training.
Simulation-based training is a crucial aspect of TAUCOM’s educational approach. The university’s simulation lab allows students to practice clinical procedures and patient interactions in a controlled, risk-free environment. Furthermore, simulated patients provide realistic scenarios that enhance clinical skills and confidence.
Affordable and accessible education
TAUCOM is dedicated to making quality medical education accessible to a diverse population of students. The university offers affordable tuition rates compared to other medical schools, reducing the financial burden on students and their families. Additionally, TAUCOM provides various scholarships and financing options to support students who demonstrate academic excellence and financial need.
The university’s commitment to accessibility extends beyond financial considerations. TAUCOM actively recruits students from various cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, fostering a diverse and inclusive learning environment. Over 40 different countries are represented in Texila’s student body. This diversity enriches the educational experience, promoting cultural competence and preparing students to serve diverse patient populations.
Campus life and student community
TAU prides itself on its supportive and nurturing campus community. The university offers various student services to ensure students succeed academically, professionally, and personally. These services include academic advising, career counseling, and extracurricular activities.
Academic advising is integral to student success. It provides personalized guidance on course selection, career planning, and academic performance. Advisors work closely with students to help them navigate the rigors of medical education and achieve their career goals.
Career counseling services at TAUCOM assist students in exploring various medical specialties and career paths. Workshops, seminars, residency preparation, and networking events connect students with alums and health care professionals, providing valuable insights and opportunities for professional growth.
Extracurricular activities at TAUCOM provide opportunities for students to engage in community service, leadership development, and cultural exchange. These activities enhance the overall educational experience and contribute to the development of well-rounded medical professionals.
Become a doctor in Guyana.
Guyana is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and Texila American University offers an incredible option for medical education. With the accredited MD program, its diverse clinical training opportunities, and the vibrant campus life, TAUCOM provides a pathway to becoming a competent and compassionate medical professional with a global mindset. For those seeking a unique and transformative medical school experience, choosing Guyana for medical school could be your best decision.
For more information about Texila American University and its programs, please visit the TAUCOM website.
Dr. Dheeraj Bansal is the dean of medicine at TAUCOM. He is a respected academic with over two decades of experience in the health care field. Dr. Bansal is adept at providing academic and technical guidance to students and the institution at large. In his previous roles, he has been instrumental in overseeing the functioning of the institution as a member of the executive committee and has also served as a key member of the quality assurance committee. As a skilled administrator, academic, and leader, Dr. Bansal comes with a unique skill set that will be influential in the institution’s growth going forward.
Dr. Nisarg Patel is the director of admissions at Texila American University, with an interest in higher education, specifically international medical education and premed pathways. In his previous roles, he has worked with students and advisors across North America to provide admission guidance. He also has an interest in quality improvement research and has published work in the ASTCT Journal (American Society of Transplantation and Cellular Therapy).
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Transcript
Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show, where we share the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast. Today we have a special sponsored episode from the Texila American University College of Medicine, or TAUCOM, in Guyana. Our first guest is Dr. Dheeraj Bansal, dean of medicine. Dr. Bansal has been instrumental in overseeing the functioning of the institution as a member of the executive committee and has also served as a key member of the quality assurance committee. We’re also joined by Dr. Nisarg Patel, director of admissions. Dr. Patel has worked with students and advisers across North America to provide admission guidance. Today we’re talking about why you should consider Texila American University in Guyana for medical school. Find out more at tau.edu.gy. That’s tau.edu.gy, and the link is in the show notes. So I’m going to ask both of you to tell us about yourselves and your roles at the Texila American University College of Medicine. Dr. Bansal, why don’t you go first?
Dheeraj Bansal: Thank you, Kevin. I am Dheeraj Bansal. I did my medical school, my MD, in India. From there I moved to Nepal and worked there as a faculty member in a medical school. After that I moved to the U.S., did my master’s in health policy and management, and joined the Harvard School of Public Health as scientific director. Later on I moved to the Caribbean region, and I worked as a professor and a member of the senior leadership team at one of the prestigious medical schools in the Caribbean region. Finally, in 2018, I moved to Guyana and joined Texila American University College of Medicine as the dean and chief academic officer.
My role, as my designation suggests, is to oversee the overall functioning of the medical school: to ensure the quality of education our students are getting, and to ensure that they have the required skills, that they have the required communication skills, and that they have a wholesome experience when they go through the clinical rotations, which are on par with any quality medical education program.
Kevin Pho: Dr. Patel, why don’t you tell us about yourself and your role?
Nisarg Patel: Well, thank you again, Dr. Pho, for having us. My name is Dr. Nisarg Patel. I’m the director of admissions here at TAUCOM. I started earlier this year, a couple of months ago, and prior to that I was in other admissions roles, where I assisted students as well as worked with advisers to provide not only admissions guidance but also guidance on how we as institutions can collaborate. I’m looking forward to talking about our program.
Kevin Pho: Dr. Bansal, from what I read, TAUCOM was founded in 2010. That is quite new. Could you explain the unique features of Texila, its curriculum, and how it prepares students for a successful medical career?
Dheeraj Bansal: Sure, Kevin. Our institution has many unique features. I would begin with the diversity of our student body. Here at Texila American University College of Medicine, TAUCOM, as we call it, we have students from over 20 countries, which is very rare. I can say that because I have worked all over the world in medical institutions, and I have never seen such a diverse student body. That is definitely something that we are very proud of, and it is very unique to our organization.
Another unique feature of TAUCOM, I would say, is the choice of clinical rotation. Our students have the choice to do their clinical rotations either in Guyana, at one of the top hospitals of Guyana, or in the U.S., at a Greenbook tertiary care hospital in Arizona, the Tucson Medical Center. This is again a very unique feature, because it exposes you to a very different and wide range of patients and medical conditions.
Another unique feature of our institution is our community outreach program. Very early on, from the very first semester of the program, our students get to go to the old age home and interact with the geriatric population. They get to go to the primary health care center. They go to the Family Care Center, which is a residential facility where children from underprivileged families and children from broken homes are taken care of, and our students go and talk to them and interact with them about common diseases, personal hygiene, dental hygiene, and things like that, which is a very wonderful experience for them.
Finally, I would say the fourth unique feature, in my opinion, is the range of career options that we offer. As you are well aware, Kevin, if you go to a medical school in the U.S., you end up having a career in the U.S. and the U.S. only, whereas if you come to our program, of course you have the option of working in the U.S. as a physician, but if you want to, you can even have a medical career in the Caribbean region also. These, I think, are the unique features of our program.
The curriculum of TAUCOM is also very unique. First of all, I would like to mention that it is based on ACGME competencies, which are the standards most of the medical schools in the United States follow. Our curriculum has main focus areas, the first of which happens to be medical knowledge. Medical knowledge is a very important component of any program, and what we do to help our students is provide them with supporting material, such as the Lecturio program, which is an excellent resource for PowerPoints, for articles, and for practice questions. Also, all our major courses’ final exams are NBME exams, which are the same exams given to U.S. medical students. Finally, at the end of our basic science program, embedded in the curriculum is a Kaplan review course. There’s also an exit exam for basic science and clinical science, called the CBSE and CCSE, which are considered some of the best predictors of the Step 1 and Step 2 exams. So these are the unique things we have in place to ensure that our students are getting the medical knowledge that they require for a successful medical career.
In terms of clinical skills, we start exposing them to clinical skills from the very first semester, in the form of doctor-patient relationship courses, which run from MD1 to MD4. In these courses, we teach them from the very first day the basic clinical skills: how to take a history, how to do a physical exam, how to go into a differential later on in the semesters, and what’s the basic management of a particular case. We also have something known as ICBM, integrated case-based modules, in which the students use role-playing as a learning method to talk about a specific medical condition. So these are the things we have in place to ensure that they have good clinical skills. Also, to supplement our efforts, we have something known as CyberPatient, which is a virtual hospital program. It’s a highly interactive program in which our students can go pick a medical condition and then go through the entire clinical procedure: history taking, physical exam, and things like that.
Finally, the third component of our curriculum happens to be research. There are enough opportunities for our students to conduct research. Again, we start from the very first semester. Research methodology, that’s the name of the course, and we teach them how to actually conduct clinical research. In semester two, when they have learned the basic skills to conduct research, they are actually required to carry out an independent clinical research project, which ends up giving them a publication in a reputed journal. So you can imagine, Kevin, by the time they’re done with the second semester, they already have a publication to their credit, which is going to strengthen their residency application significantly. So these are some of the unique features that I could think of in the curriculum to help them become good medical doctors or have a successful medical career. I would also like to add affordability. It’s a very affordable program, which never hurts.
Kevin Pho: Dr. Bansal, you mentioned that TAUCOM offers clinical rotations both in the U.S. and Guyana. Talk more about that dual exposure and how it benefits students in their medical training.
Dheeraj Bansal: Kevin, as you know, this is a time for global medicine. We are not required to practice medicine in our country of origin anymore. You should be able to work in any part of the world if you want to do that, and our program provides you that opportunity. Imagine working in a very different part of the world, with its own set of clinical conditions and its own diseases that you are getting exposed to. So I think this dual clinical rotation gives a very rare opportunity for our students to get exposed not only to conditions and diseases in the United States but also in a developing country such as Guyana, with its own sets of communicable diseases and conditions. I think this kind of exposure will be crucial in them becoming a more wholesome physician and being more successful in their medical careers later on.
Kevin Pho: Dr. Bansal, how do Texila American University’s curriculum and clinical rotations specifically prepare students for the competitive residency application process in the U.S.?
Dheeraj Bansal: So, Kevin, let us start with what makes an application a good residency application. If you look at the different components, I would start with a good performance on USMLE Step 1 and Step 2. After that, some kind of research experience, especially focused on some clinical conditions, so clinical research experience; some kind of community activity or some kind of community service that you have given; and some kind of interprofessional collaboration, which is also an ACGME competency, by the way. And finally, ensuring that you have the required clinical exposure to be a part of any team in a good residency program. These are the five components that I believe will make a residency application a good residency application.
Let’s take them one by one. As I already mentioned, we do give you all the knowledge, including NBME exams, including the Kaplan review course, and including the comprehensive exit exams for basic science and clinical science, ensuring that you have all the tools to do really well on USMLE Step 1 and Step 2.
For research, as I mentioned earlier, our curriculum is built to automatically make you publish a scientific paper. We both know, Kevin, that it’s the first scientific paper that’s the hardest to work on. After that, it becomes easier because you know exactly what to do. So we set our students on a path to keep on publishing. By the time they apply for a residency program, they already have multiple publications to their credit. So that’s the research part. Also, every year we conduct an international conference in which we have experts from all over the world. The last one we did was on communicable diseases, and we had experts from Canada, from the U.S., from the United Kingdom, Malaysia, India, and of course the local experts from the Caribbean region. That’s a wonderful opportunity for our students to present their work, to do poster presentations or paper presentations, again enhancing the research component of their residency application.
Also, as I mentioned earlier, we have excellent opportunities to do community service, whether it’s the geriatric population in the old age home or in the primary health care center, whether it’s underprivileged children in the Family Center, or the remote rural areas of the country, which provides them enough opportunity to do some kind of community service.
Finally, interprofessional collaboration. Texila American University College of Medicine is within the umbrella of Texila American University. We also have a School of Business Management, and we also have schools of public health. Hence it’s a wonderful opportunity, and our students have been doing that. There’s enough collaboration between these institutes to bring different perspectives and different aspects to medical education, which is also an added plus to their residency application. And we ensure that they get the correct clinical exposure, with the variety and number of patients that they’re supposed to see and experience, and you have a good, robust residency application.
Kevin Pho: Dr. Bansal, I saw that your program has important accreditations and recognitions from a few countries. What makes TAUCOM’s dual accreditation significant for prospective medical students?
Dheeraj Bansal: OK, Kevin, let me start by saying this. What do you think of a movie that has won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe? Of course you would say that that movie has to be good, because it has won not only an Oscar but also a Golden Globe. So yes, CAAM-HP was enough for our needs, because CAAM-HP has been recognized by WFME as the accreditation body for the region, and that was enough for our students to be eligible to go to the U.S. But we decided to test ourselves further. We said, “Why not try another accreditation body?” So we went for ACCM, which is a universally recognized accreditation body, even recognized by WFME, just to show ourselves and to show everyone that we really are what we claim to be. So for our prospective students, I’ll say that we are actually a good medical program, as proved by our two accreditations, ACCM and CAAM-HP, and you will definitely have the tools required for a successful medical career here.
Kevin Pho: And Dr. Patel, can you comment on how accreditation ties into Texila’s market position and growth phase?
Nisarg Patel: Absolutely. Accreditation has been a crucial piece, as Dr. Bansal mentioned, and it really incorporates, for us as an institution, our university, and our programs, not only the credibility of the program but also its market position. As you mentioned, the dual accreditation, CAAM-HP and ACCM, are the hallmarks of accreditation when you’re looking at international medical education. I think it further echoes what Dr. Bansal mentioned about the standards that we have for students who are pursuing international medical careers. We want Texila to be the location, and we want students to come to Guyana and have the same experience that they would have at a local university in the United States or in North America, say in Canada.
I think the significance of the accreditation and how it ties into our market position is that we’re fairly new in the grand scheme of things when it comes to medical education, but I think it brings us right up to speed with all of the other medical schools in the region that have these accreditations. We are, as we like to say, in our hyper-growth phase, so we’re actively looking for partnerships and collaborations with universities locally, in the United States, as well as in Canada, so that we can find options and education laddering options for our students and for our counterparts, so that they can provide their student bodies with different options for medical education or some of the other programs that Dr. Bansal mentioned.
Kevin Pho: You’re listening to a special sponsored episode from the Texila American University College of Medicine about why you should consider Texila American University in Guyana for medical school. Find out more at tau.edu.gy. That’s tau.edu.gy, and that link is in the show notes. Dr. Bansal, how does TAUCOM support its students beyond academics, particularly in terms of career counseling, research opportunities, and mental health services?
Dheeraj Bansal: Career counseling, we think, is something really important, and we do not wait for our students to graduate for career counseling. We actually begin career counseling from day one. When the students come into our program, during the orientation, we talk in detail about what kind of career options are going to be available to them when they finish the program. The reason is that it will act as a motivation for them. They see that, yes, “I want to be a surgeon,” or, “I want to be a physician,” and they start working on that from day one, and hence we start from day one.
The second step of career counseling we do is when they reach MD4, the end of the basic sciences program. Here we get clinicians from our clinical rotation site, GPHC in Guyana, and the clinicians come and talk to them about different departments, different specialties, and what career options are going to be available to them once they pick that as their career choice.
The third step of career counseling comes, Kevin, when they finish their core rotations and it’s time for elective rotations. As per our curriculum, they are supposed to pick seven electives out of 20-plus choices that they are going to have, and for those electives, our associate dean of clinical affairs sits with every student one-on-one, discusses their career choices, and helps them pick the elective rotations based on their career choices. For example, if somebody wants to go into cardiology, he will say, “Do one rotation in cardiology, one maybe in emergency medicine, and one maybe in radiology, where you can be exposed to echo and things like that.” So that’s step four of our career counseling. Finally, when our students graduate, depending on which program they want to go to or which country they want to go to, we have packages prepared for them: for this licensing program, what are the requirements, what are the things you need to do, what are the documents you need to submit, and how to prepare for that exam. So it’s a four-step process of career counseling for us.
Research opportunities are plentiful. As I told you in the earlier part of our interview, we start the research training from the very first semester, and we teach them how to do research work, especially on a clinical topic. Then in semester two, they actually carry out a research activity, which ends up in a publication or a poster presentation at reputed international conferences and things like that. Then as they move on, since they have already done it once, they usually end up publishing one or two more papers, so by the time they’re done, they already have multiple publications to their credit. Secondly, again, as I mentioned earlier, we organize an international conference once a year around the November-December time, which is an excellent opportunity for our students not only to present their work but also to listen to these research experts from all over the world. That’s a wonderful exposure that they get, according to their interests and what they want to do in research areas. So these are the kinds of research activities we have in place for our students.
For mental health services, we have multiple things in place. As soon as a student walks into the program, we assign a student mentor, preferably from the same background that the student is coming from, because that person will be familiar with the challenges the student will be facing when they join the program. We also assign a faculty mentor, not academic, but a faculty mentor to address the non-academic issues that the student might be facing. We also assign an academic advisor, again a faculty member, who will help the student if the student is facing any challenges in academic performance, which is also going to affect his mental health. And finally, we have a panel of mental health care providers who are stationed off campus, so if a student has the need to see a mental health care provider, then we organize a session with the mental health provider for our students.
Kevin Pho: Dr. Patel, what does the admission process look like for students, and what is TAUCOM’s transfer policy?
Nisarg Patel: OK, so when it comes to applying for medical school, I know that there is a lot of anticipation, and there’s a lot of nervousness that’s built in. One of the biggest differences in our admissions process, which is more popularly known as the rolling admissions process, compared to what our students may be used to here in the United States, where they only have the opportunity to apply to medical school once a year, is that at our program, students can apply for two separate intakes. We have an intake in September, in the fall, and then we have another intake in March of every year. So this gives students two different opportunities to apply for the program. If they don’t succeed the first time, they can get some feedback from our admissions directors and really strengthen their application so that they can apply the following term.
One of the important highlights about applying to our program is that, given the newness of the program, we understand that there may be questions about approaching a Caribbean medical school or an international medical school, and we’re here to give second chances. So if a student really missed the boat for medical school in the United States or in Canada, they can take their talents down to the Caribbean and see if they can apply themselves here and really get that opportunity to go through medical school.
The admissions process is fairly similar to what students are used to here in the U.S. and in Canada. You do have to submit applications along with the documents that are pertinent to the admissions process, so things like a really well-written personal statement, an updated resume that communicates their professional and academic achievements, and, of course, letters of recommendation from their mentors or from their academic advisors, which are a significant part of the admissions process. One of the most challenging parts of a medical school application or medical school admission is the interview. At our program, of course, we have the interview that is conducted by the admissions representative, Dr. Surich. He’s one of the admissions directors at our program. But in addition to that, we also have multiple mini interviews as part of our admissions process, which is not very common at any of the medical schools here in the U.S., and some universities in Canada still conduct the MMIs. So it’s a really different experience for students. It gives them the rigorous kind of medical school application process as well as the second chance at applying to medical school.
You mentioned transfer policy, and this is another way that our program is quite different from other medical schools, specifically in the Caribbean market. Many medical schools don’t accept transfer students. In our case, we do. We accept transfer students into our MD program from accredited medical schools, and I think it’s a really important part of a student’s journey. If they have entered medical school and, for one reason or another, they had to stop, or they’re looking for a different opportunity for their medical education, they can still pursue their medical careers at Texila, and our admissions process is well suited for that. It’s quite seamless. You see, nowadays we can complete the applications online. You don’t have to travel for in-person interviews; the interviews are conducted virtually, as we are having this discussion virtually. So in the grand scheme of things, the medical school application process does look very similar to the applications that you would see here in the U.S., but with more opportunities for you to strengthen your application as you get ready for med school.
Kevin Pho: Dr. Patel, what qualities and characteristics do you believe make a student a good fit for Texila? Are there specific traits or experiences you look for during the admissions process?
Nisarg Patel: Absolutely, and I think it starts from the core question of what qualities we are looking for in our own physician, a family doctor. My wife and I are looking for a pediatrician right now, and some of the qualities that we look for are commitment, resilience, and dedication to their job. At the end of the day, when we are evaluating students who have completed their application for medical school, we’re looking for those same qualities. Of course, academic standards are going to be part of the evaluation, but can you communicate the information that is in front of you? Can you have a really compassionate conversation with your patients and your peers and your mentors? So I really think that resilience, commitment, and dedication are the three most important characteristics that we look for in students, in addition to their academic accomplishments.
Kevin Pho: Dr. Patel, you alluded to this earlier, but what do you say to prospective students and their families who may be hesitant about attending a Caribbean medical school?
Nisarg Patel: Absolutely. You know, one of the most important things is that we understand, as admissions and administrative professionals, that there are concerns about attending an international medical school, and there’s definitely been a stigma around attending Caribbean medical schools. But I do want to point out once again the accreditation that we mentioned earlier. The CAAM-HP accreditation and the ACCM accreditation are significant as part of any medical education when you’re pursuing an international medical school outside of the United States and Canada, and we meet those standards, right?
One of the important things that I want to communicate to not only students but the decision-makers for those students is that accreditation is not only important as part of their medical school journey, but also after they have graduated from Texila, they can pursue their residencies and their licensing options in different parts of the world, specifically, and importantly here, the United States, Canada, and the U.K., which are options for the graduates who complete their MD degree at Texila. So yes, we understand that there may be some hesitance in pursuing a medical school that is located internationally, outside of the United States. But unlike some of the other medical schools in the Caribbean, I think one of the biggest differences for Guyana is that we are located in South America. Although we have a coast, and we’re located in a coastal city, Georgetown, students don’t have to travel to, say, for example, a small island in order to go to a medical school. They can come right to Guyana, they can go to the main campus, and still have that medical school experience, maybe not the same as they would in the United States, but fairly similar.
Kevin Pho: Dr. Bansal, can you provide examples of how Texila American University supports its students in overcoming the challenges associated with attending a Caribbean medical school, particularly in terms of clinical experience and residency placement?
Dheeraj Bansal: Sure, Kevin. If you think of it, being a parent myself, what challenges would my child face, or if I am a prospective student, what challenges am I going to face if I go to a Caribbean medical school? The first thing and the first question would be: Would I be able to cope with the challenges there, in terms of being in a new place, in a new environment? I think that is the most important question, and we are very sensitive to that. Because of that reason, we have ensured that our program is not just about academics. We have different activities in place, such as sports activities and cultural activities, and I have to mention here one thing, something we introduced called Culture Mingle. What happens on those days is that students from different parts of the world come in their traditional dresses, they bring samples of food items from their own country, and they present songs and dances from their own country, and even a short video showing the highlights of their own country. I’m telling you, this was one of the most wonderful experiences that I have been through. It’s going to be stressful still, but it is not as stressful as one would think, coming to a different environment.
As for clinical experience, we were very careful in picking our clinical sites, which happen to be GPHC in Guyana, which is the top hospital of the country, a tertiary care hospital with 600-plus beds, and has the variety and the number of patients that a medical student must be exposed to to become competent in those clinical skills and to appear for the USMLE Step 2 exam. Our second center happens to be Tucson Medical Center in Arizona, another Greenbook hospital, a 600-bed tertiary care hospital with all the specialties that are available at that level of hospital. So we have worked very hard to ensure that our students get the clinical experience that they deserve when they apply for any residency program.
We are also very actively involved in developing the clinical curriculum, which ensures not only the medical topics that they will be taught, but it also has a list of procedures, clinical procedures that either they will be conducting themselves or they will be observing somebody doing. So, in a nutshell, we have ensured that our clinical curriculum is developed in such a way that the clinical experience is wholesome and has all the required components to bring them to the level of anybody going through a medical program anywhere else in the country.
Finally, residency placement. As I was saying earlier, we start career counseling from day one, when they join this program. We have followed the standards of the NBME, in the form of NBME exams, which are some of the best predictors for USMLE Step 1 and Step 2. We have videos of our successful candidates who are actually in residency programs in the U.S., and these videos are informative communication with our future students as to what the requirements are, what documentation you need, what resources you must go to, and what things you have to keep in mind when you appear for a residency interview. Having been through the process themselves, they are the experts in telling our students what needs to be done to be successful in the residency program. So these are the things we have put in place to address the challenges one might face being in a Caribbean medical school. I’d like to say that we are very flexible, and we update ourselves regularly, and if anyone else has an idea that will be helpful in making our program more efficient, we are always open to ideas.
Kevin Pho: Now, I’m going to end with some of your take-home messages that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience. Dr. Patel, why don’t you go first?
Nisarg Patel: Well, first and foremost, I want to thank you for giving us this opportunity to speak with your listeners, not only about our program, but about what opportunities they have when they’re looking for options to apply for medical school or for other health care professions. My take-home message for all of your listeners would be two things. One, if you want to pursue a medical career, Texila American University in Guyana is a really great option, and our accreditation that we mentioned earlier in the podcast is a really great place to start for anybody who’s wanting to explore the program and why the accreditation is important.
The second point is that we have a pathway to a medical career for all students, whether it is a high school graduate who can apply to our premed track that leads directly to the MD program, or some of our undergraduate students who have completed their prerequisite courses and meet the 90-credit requirement that we have for admission into the MD program; they can also apply for the MD track. Ultimately, we are here in service of our students and how we can help them achieve their dream to become a medical doctor. So if we can provide any support from the admissions perspective and as a program, we’re ready to do so.
Kevin Pho: And Dr. Bansal, we’ll end with you. Please share your take-home messages.
Dheeraj Bansal: Thank you, Kevin, and once again, thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to interact with your audience and your followers. What I would like to say is that every genuine aspirant of medical education who dreams of becoming a physician, or who dreams of practicing as a doctor, should not give up on that dream just because there were not enough seats available at the medical schools that they applied to. Just because they did not reach a certain level of education during their basic education years does not mean that they cannot be good doctors in the future or be a part of a competitive residency program. We believe here at Texila American University College of Medicine in providing you with that chance, that opportunity to become a physician, to become a doctor who is competent, who is knowledgeable, and who is passionate. Thank you very much.
Kevin Pho: You’ve listened to a special sponsored episode from the Texila American University College of Medicine about why you should consider Texila American University in Guyana for medical school. Find out more at tau.edu.gy. That’s tau.edu.gy, and that link is in the show notes. Drs. Bansal and Patel, thank you so much for sharing your perspective and insight. Thanks again for coming on the show.
Dheeraj Bansal: Thank you.
Nisarg Patel: Pleasure.
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