Update and Info

[SCIMD Official]

I just wanted to give people an update as to what has been going on in the UK campus.

There were no students for the September Class in Luton because the schools ability to issue visa's was revoked pending approval from Accreditation Service for Internation Colleges Accreditation Service for International Colleges - ASIC (this forum wont let me post links yet but google ASIC UK and its the second link) which has been completed (a while ago), and the school can be found under the college directory SCIMD College of Medicine as a Premier Status College.

I don't have information about how many students are currently at the school, nor would I share that information as people want their privacy.

After this Accreditation the school was required to have another visit from the UK's home office to be inspected again for approval to issue visas. My understanding is that this took a very long time to set up.

The School was again recently evaluated and inspected and has been approved to issue visas again which can be seen at The Home Office website (forum wont let me post link but google "uk home office registered colleges" - its the first link) The school is on page 40 listed under Iba Mar Diop College of Medicine

The school is Listed as a B rated school

What does B rating mean?

Institutes are still allowed to get their students - visas but here students are slightly more scrutinized in comparions to A category institutes. Also, processing time may be slightly more than A rating institutes. With the school's history in the UK you can't really argue with that.

So the school is going to start aggressively recruiting for the January Semester. If anyone has anyone who wants or needs more info you can tell them to contact me via PM on the forum here.

They can also visit the schools website (forum wont let me post links stchris.edu) and pick either french or english and contact us to get phone numbers and e-mails to contact for more info.

I do not have answers yet for curriculum because it is evolving currently to include mandatory time for UK campus students to spend in Senegal which would satisfy the majority of licensing bodies (details are being worked out and will be updated on the schools website as things progress).

Hopefully one of the forum administrators here will read this post and start a new forum for us and move or copy this post to there, as well as lock this old forum. Please PM me with questions.

[RobOman]

You can't tell us something as basic as how many students are at the school? How is the number of students at the school "private"? It is completely non-identifying in every conceivable way. This sounds like the same old crap as the last administration, except worse.

[SCIMD Official]

You can't tell us something as basic as how many students are at the school? How is the number of students at the school "private"? It is completely non-identifying in every conceivable way. This sounds like the same old crap as the last administration, except worse.

Hi RobOman, I'm sorry you feel this is worse than the previous administration.

To answer your question, I actually did ask how many students were there and was unable to get an answer because of the visa issue there were no students at the campus at all for september (as posted above).

How many of them will return in january is still to be seen, how many new students if any will come I don't know as I cannot see the future (yet... but I'm working on it)... If the recruitment for the new semester doesn't go well and no students return then there may be no english campus at all, (see my other post stating that there is little to no extra money to keep renting an unused empty building)

If it would put your mind at ease I could make up a number? ... but that does no one any good... Even putting a number on clinical students is difficult because some students are made "inactive" if they don't do a rotation for an extended period of time and could have left the school or be studying for exams, so even that number would be wildly off.

Once the school gets into swing an I have concrete numbers then I agree putting up simply numbers is anonymous and would have little harm.. but at this point with the low numbers in the english program it isn't hard to track people down with any information. I'm not going to be the one to get someone else into trouble.

Hope that answered your questions.

Again if you don't find what i post or will post useful please ignore it. If you find something I post inaccurate or misleading then please pm me or post on the forum and I will try to correct the mistake or delete what is ambiguous.

[RobOman]

That's a reasonable answer. I apologize for being abrasive in my response to your post, I misinterpreted the meaning of what you had written. When you said "September Class" I took that to mean the incoming class, not the entire population of the UK campus. I was under the mistaken impression that the revocation of the ability to grant visas only impacted new students, not all the students in the UK that had previously been granted visas.

It sounds as if SCIMD is in somewhat dire financial straits. If the UK campus dissolves, is that it for SCIMD as a whole, or just the UK operations?

[SCIMD Official]

If the Luton campus disolved then that would be only the UK operations.

I don't have exact numbers again.. but from our last conversation the Dakar campus has ~ 40 students a semester and very very full. Plans are not to increase those numbers as the goal is to have exchanges happen between the Luton and Dakar campus for some of the Basic Science Classes and Clinicals if desired. This is one of the requirements that many of the licensing bodies are requesting.

So there will be classes being held in the UK in english, Classes held in Dakar in French and English. The school in Dakar is associated with a Hospital that does have all rotations available. I know the green book vs blue book vs what ever arguement is going to come up at some point and is something that needs to be looked into by the students themselves.

I have a link to a french newspaper about the Dakar Campus where a year ago had their first MD student graduate (6 year program) and she successfully defended her Thesis (a requirement for the Dakar Program)- Medical Complications of Diabetes and Pt's with Acute Coronary Syndrome. I still can't post links and this is a tough google. But for those who want to try... the newspaper is Walfadjri L'aurore.

The requirements from the individual states varries so much and so fast that the safest bet is to pick rotations that would be considered "green book" in any state. Most importantly keep very meticulous records of your rotations (I still have copies of all my evals and letters from the hospitals).

My philosophy is to not rely on anyone. EVERY school has support staff that are human and will misplace paper work. Foreign schools so whatever reason just have a harder time finding it after wards. So if you have copies of everything.. makes like easier

[SCIMD Official]

Please note that the schools rating has gone from a "Tier B" school to a "Tier A" school

Tier A ratings mean that while in a Tier B setting all the requirements requested by the UK Homeoffice were met in the defined timeline.

[RobOman]

Any more new info? Has the curriculum been finalized? Anything new with regard to loans? Has the fate of the UK campus been decided? Etc...?

[SCIMD Official]

no new news...

Loans are still being worked on but its a long slow road... driving me crazy.

The fate of the UK is still going forward as planned...

As things change updates will be made.

[RobOman]

Are there any updates on any of the issues currently facing SCIMD? UK Campus? New Curriculum? GMC? Etc...

I know the wheels of bureaucracy move slowly but this is starting to seems a little ludicrous, particularly with regard to the issue of a new curriculum. I know designing a curriculum that will make everyone happy can't be easy but I would think at least some major progress has been made at this point.

[SCIMD Official]

nothing new at this moment.

we will be having a phone meeting next weekend and I will ask.

With SCIMD and its past.. no news is good news...

[RobOman]

nothing new at this moment.

we will be having a phone meeting next weekend and I will ask.

With SCIMD and its past.. no news is good news...Any news from the phone call?

[SCIMD Official]

Nothing new that is worth sharing was discussed.

For now the UK campus is still open and still trying to satisfy all requirements and things put forward by the GMC and Home office.

The one thing that is clear now is that hopefully prior to this upcoming september semester (hopefully sooner) we will be able to establish a clear finish line with the GMC and home office. To date all requirements that have been requested have been met but once that happens new hurdles are introduced. This is incredibly frustrating for staff that the "laws" continually change. All things are being considered at this moment but nothing definitive decided.

Curriculum and new changes are not going to be implemented until we can get a clear goal from the UK.

I don't have further details as to the inner workings of that because I'm not involved with that directly, just present for the conversation. I do my little parts as requested.

[RobOman]

Sounds good. It's nice the GMC has decided they can't keep things up in the air (after all these frickin' years) and hope to kill St. Chris with indecision, I really do suspect that may have been what was going on. Actual guidelines would be a godsend.

If everything can be settled there is no reason for the UK branch of St. Chris not to come charging back.

[SCIMD Official]

It's nice the GMC has decided they can't keep things up in the air .

I never said that they have decided.. this is what we are going to try and push for.. . What has been happening is that a decision is made to put end points down, those are reached by SCIMD and then the end point changes.

It appears to be a never ending game at this point.

Ideally a realistic endpoint is laid out and we can reach those, and come "charging back", but there is now way to tell the future... yet... time will tell

[RobOman]

I never said that they have decided.. this is what we are going to try and push for.. . What has been happening is that a decision is made to put end points down, those are reached by SCIMD and then the end point changes.

It appears to be a never ending game at this point.

Ideally a realistic endpoint is laid out and we can reach those, and come "charging back", but there is now way to tell the future... yet... time will tellOkay. I misunderstood what you had meant. Still, hopefully one way or the other, we'll have an answer in the not too distant future.