Many people in Samoa have continued to ask about the pathways to becoming a medical doctor. The majority of the public, especially parents, do not understand what is involved in the six years of study to become a medical doctor.
OUM was started in 2002, and I was there at the start. The whole world attacked the medical school in Samoa, and many professional colleagues including local, pacific, USA, NZ, and Australian colleagues called us “stupid”, “dump”, “are you out of your mind”, etc, because we were at the cutting edge of teaching medicine on line coupled with face-to-face clinical teaching, utilizing the various internet software and hardware to do innovative teaching of medicine, because we had to. I was personally attacked by colleagues overseas for getting involved in OUM. OUM was innovative as it cops all the nasty comments from 2002 until about 2010. The main criticism was, “How can you teach anatomy without a “cadaver”? Everyone around the world especially in the USA, New Zealand, and Australia gave us the name “computer doctors”. We managed to find great software to teach gross clinical anatomy that was much better than the textbooks or the cadaver. Now – look at where the whole world of medical education is at. OUM from small Samoa was pioneering all these methodologies.
It has been unbelievable that OUM in Samoa started a new trend of medical education in the world, delivering medical education at a distance to educate doctors all around the globe to a top quality, while utilizing their local doctors to teach their clinical students in their facilities, so to build their medical capacity. We managed to bring the best expertise from around the world to teach all the local (Samoa) and overseas students in basic science, then utilize their clinical health structures and doctors to train their future doctors utilizing OUM’s curriculum and method of study.
This is how innovative it was, and now everyone around the world is following it. After 21 years of delivering this method of medical education, the whole world has followed what started in small Samoa. We were the leader in this modern innovative idea.
The Government of Samoa had risked its reputation by setting up OUM in 2002 and had been very visionary with this, leading the way for modern and virtual medical education. The challenge now is to continue to push the envelope politically to spread this innovative model of medical education to educate more New Zealand Pacific Island doctors, Maori doctors, and Indigenous and First Nation doctors in New Zealand and Australia.
OUM model is an answer to the shortage of doctors all around the world, and every country is short of medical doctors. New Zealand is talking about setting up a 3rd medical school besides Otago and Auckland, and OUM could be this 3rd medical school, as OUM has been running these medical training modules for 21 years. OUM has many graduates working in the USA, Australia and Samoa. We have had 2 graduates from American Samoa. The proof of the quality of the OUM teaching is in the quality of the doctors who graduated through the program. Many are working in our hospitals in Samoa in all disciplines.
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