In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Benevolent.

We thank Allah the Almighty for being able to welcome the Class of 2008 of our 5-year MBBS programme in early August. From the first batch of 71 students (Class of 2005), each year the number of medical students has grown steadily to the present fourth batch (Class of 2008) of about 130 students.

The most senior students (Class of 2005) are now completing their clinical postings of Year 3 which will end in October 2008, after which in January 2009, they will continue their academic journey into the 4th Year of their studies. Meanwhile their younger brethren (Class of 2006) are now in the initial weeks of their first clinical postings.

At present, we have been given the permission by the Ministry of Defence to use the facilities of the Terendak Military Hospital in Melaka. Our students are also undergoing their clinical postings at Putrajaya and Serdang Hospitals with the permission of the Ministry of Health. We thank all honorary lecturers of these hospitals for their efforts as teachers of our students.

We are also continuously recruiting full-time academics to cope with the growing number of medical students, always bearing in mind that the appropriate lecturer: student ratio specified by the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) must be observed.

The niche areas of the CUCMS medical sciences education can be summarised in an acronym, Say MD, comprising of:

Student-Centred Team-Based Learning
Affective Domain
Young Mercy
Military Medicine and Pharmacy
Disaster Medicine and Pharmacy.

One unique feature of our training is the involvement of both MBBS and BPharm(Hons) students in common endeavours (like the co-curricular activities of Young Mercy) and shared classes in the medical sciences. While this cooperation is a dream among educators in medical sciences, it is already a reality in our institution, where mutual respect between medical and pharmacy students is inculcated at the earliest stage of their development.

May we be instruments of the Mercy of God, serving humanity regardless of race or creed, solely for His Pleasure.

Prof. Mohamed Hatta Shaharom
Senior Vice-President (Acad) & Dean, Faculty of Medicine