Teaching hospital to open in Sharjah next year

SHARJAH // The emirate's first teaching hospital will open early next year, opening up 210 new beds and giving medical students access to some of the country's most advanced clinical training.

Affiliated to the University of Sharjah, the hospital will have 30 doctors and 200 nurses recruited from around the world.

And after Sharjah gets its teaching hospital, Al Ain and Ajman could be next in line. "The students will be exposed to the advances in technology as well as having 210 more beds to train on," said Hossam Hamdy, the dean of the medical faculty. "Adding more beds gives many more opportunities for training," he said. "Right now we have between 500 and 600 beds at the four hospitals we work with, so this will reduce the numbers of students training in each department or unit. There will be more direct supervision by the faculty as the students are spread out."

Funded by the university and the government of Sharjah, the hospital will offer a range of specialities including neurology, reconstructive surgery and pediatrics. Dr Ayad al Mosli, a clinical tutor, said the teaching hospital will also be of great benefit to the faculty. "Currently, we don't get regular clinical supervision. If there's a hospital here, we will get hands-on clinical work, regularly, with the patients at the hospital.

"It will be much more stimulating for us," he added. "We can teach the students with real patients with real diseases. He says that for the patients, teaching hospitals can give some of the best care, with a constant flow of students to give hands-on attention. Rania Abdulla, 23, has been training in hospitals for three years and now goes to one every day during her fifth and final year of studies.

"In a regular hospital the doctor has to stop more often to explain things. Some doctors are still not comfortable with us around. It depends on the doctor's personality and teaching skills. "This would of course be partly solved if we had a teaching hospital," she said. There are four government hospitals that the medical school uses: Al Baraha in Dubai and Al Kuwaiti, Al Qassimi and Al Zaid in Sharjah, but from the campus in University City, each one can take time to reach.

"It will be great to just have this so close and we can go whenever we have spare time," added Ms Abdulla. Shakirah Aregbesdola, 22, also in her final year, came to the university from Nigeria. When she went back this year for work experience at a hospital in her home country, she found she was around two years ahead of her counterparts, thanks to the hospital training she had at the university.

"At this point, if we're this good without a teaching hospital, can you imagine the benefits of having one on campus? "It will make a tremendous difference. We'd have the freedom to go in any time we liked and keep developing skills." added Ms Aregbesdola. Dr Hassan Galadari, an assistant professor at the UAE University's medical faculty, said Al Ain also needs a university hospital. "A university hospital is an important concept that is widely considered key in educating students and residents. The hospital which is run by the school of medicine provides faculty, research capabilities and freedom for medical students to be a part of the treating medical team," he said.

The unity of a hospital and university, Dr Galadari said, "creates an ideal place where a hospital acts as a primary treatment site for patients, clinical research and education of students." He said restrictions on faculty gaining clinical access and teaching permissions can put strains on the relationship between the two institutions. "We have had this problem for a long period of time and though we have had greater freedom in the past when the Ministry of Health was involved in running the hospitals, the relationship has become much more difficult.

With the way it is structured, it may be impossible to have that perfect marriage. Sharjah University is purely private and that's why it is able to do that easily and implement the concept of a university hospital." The demand for teaching hospitals has led the Ajman University of Science and Technology, also a private institution, to begin a feasibility study to build one at its Ajman campus, to expand upon its schools of pharmacy and dentistry.

"It's the only way to really offer medical programmes," said Thamer Saeed Salman, vice president, administrative and financial affairs. "You either partner with a well equipped local hospital or build your own and we believe that building our own teaching hospital is the only way to offer programmes in public health and medicine."

mswan@thenational.ae