Quality medical studies

MELAKA-MANIPAL Medical College (MMMC) ranks high among the nation’s best medical education providers.

It is highly recommended as one of the medical schools to pursue medicine and dentistry.

Manipal is, in itself, a symbol of high-quality education in India and remains at the top of various rankings for medicine, dentistry and engineering, among other specialist education.

Since the ‘80s, it has been a highly sought-after destination for medicine and dentistry studies for Malaysians. Manipal’s alumni makes up a large portion of medical professionals in the Malaysian health arena.

Many Manipal engineering graduates, too, have distinguished themselves, one of them being the chief executive officer of Microsoft, Satya Nadella.

High-quality education

MMMC, a joint venture with the Manipal group and Malaysian partners, was set up in the early ‘90s and follows in the best traditions of Manipal’s tenacity towards high-quality education.

The iconic institution receives applications even up to a year ahead of its intake for its much-vaunted degree programmes – the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) and Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS).

The MBBS is the flagship of MMMC and its first batch of medical students was enrolled in 1997.

Under this twin campus programme, students first engage in basic sciences studies at the MMMC Manipal campus in India before returning home for intense and comprehensive clinical skills training at the Melaka campus.

Students will be posted in government hospitals in Melaka, Muar, Segamat and Jasin, as well as in health clinics.

Benchmark for excellence

The BDS is another popular undergraduate course. Introduced in 2009, it was deemed a benchmark for other schools at the time of its accreditation.

BDS students are required to complete their pre-clinical training in India over a two-year period and then return to Melaka for three years of rigorous training under the guidance of dental specialists at MMMC’s on-campus dental clinic.

The clinic is comprehensively equipped, providing the local community with excellent dental services at their doorstep, at reasonable prices.

In fact, many patients come from as far as Kuala Lumpur and Johor Baru to the MMMC dental clinic on a regular basis.

The services of this student dental clinic, under the Faculty of Dentistry, are open to the public.

To stream “prepped up” students into their degree programmes, MMMC introduced its homegrown pre-university level programme Foundation in Science (FiS) in 2012.

Students come first

The FiS incorporates the basics of medical and dentistry subjects into its curriculum, with the rationale that introducing such subjects MBBS and BDS students will encounter – especially in their first year of medical and dentistry studies – will reduce the steep learning curve and help them settle down faster.

Feedback on this move has been positive.

With MMMC celebrating its 20th year in Malaysia, it is now offering scholarships for the FiS programme.

Realising that finance is not much forthcoming at the pre-university level, MMMC’s scholarships have favourable terms and range from 50% to 100%.

Those with a passion for medicine and dentistry, but who are deterred by financial concerns, now have an opportunity to pursue their dreams.

As the saying goes, proof of the pudding is in its eating, so visit the MMMC campus in Melaka and witness firsthand its commitment to its vision of being “a world-class educational centre in a multicultural environment”.

■ For more information, log on to www.manipal.edu/melaka or call 06-289 6662.