Malawi College of Medicine in silver jubilee celebrations
University of Malawi’s College of Medicine has said its Silver Jubilee celebrations slated for next week is a reflection of where the college has come from since its inception in September, 1991.
The College’s Principal, Dr Mwapatsa Mipando told repporters in Blantyre noting that the celebrations that will bring together all alumni will also act as platform for mapping forward on where the college wants to go.
“We have organized the 25 years of existence celebrations as a way of reflecting on as well as showcasing our excitement because we know the future is bright for the college and Malawi.
“As you remember, in 1991, Malawi never had a medical school, so most of our healthcare workers like doctors, pharmacists and physiotherapists were trained outside. Actually we were a laughing stock because people used to say that they were more Malawian doctors in Manchester than there were in Malawi,” said Mipando.
Mipando said the establishment of the College of Medicine changed things for the better as the country is now producing its own medical personnel through the college.
“You would go to the district hospital, they never had doctors or Pharmacists, so we are looking back to where we started, where people said we couldn’t bring doctors of high quality on global competency.
“We are looking from taking a class of 12 students alone but now we have produced over 665 doctors and most of these doctors are in Malawi, if you go to any district hospital now, you will have a doctor.
“We never produced pharmacists but now we have pharmacists in Malawi, we have Medical Laboratory scientists, not only that we are also producing PHD people, specialist like pediatricians, surgeons in Malawi,” boasted Mipando.
The Principal added that the college has also managed to conduct some researches of relevance to Malawi like the Mother to Child Transmission of HIV and Aids part of which was done in Malawi as well as Malaria treatment research which was done at COM.
“All these, are making us celebrate to say this is where we are coming from, what people said couldn’t be done, we are producing doctors that are of high quality internationally and now we are a darling such that we are having students coming from outside the country to study at COM,” he said.
Chairman of the Silver Jubilee Celebration Committee, Vice Principal Mark Malewa said the celebrations would be spiced by a lot of activities starting from 4 September throughout the week to Saturday.
“We have organized a lot of activities which will start with a Memorial Ceremony of Late Professor John Chimphagwi at Chonde Village in Luchenza on Sunday whilst on Monday we will launch the jubilee year as well as honour all our departed colleagues be it lecturers, students and unveiling a memorial pillar which has been elected at the college.
Malewa said other activities which will run up to Saturday include Partners Day, research open day, research dissemination conference day with cocktails, traditional dances, sporting activities finalizing with a big walk and dinner and dance. Students and alumni will also be showcasing their activities during the week.
‘We are urging the general public to come because we are socially accountable and we would want feedback from users of our services as well as the students,” he said.
According to Malewa, about K40 million is the money that is going into the aspects of all the day-to-day activities and has been raised through the colleges fundraising activities as well as other partners, alumni, companies and organizations.
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