Medical students at Barts’ new campus in Gozo will be paying €35,000 a year for tuition, considerably more than the £9,000 (€12,400) they would be paying in London.
But the Dean of Education Anthony Warrens believes there will be considerable demand for the 60 places each year on the five-year course.
“There are a number of reasons why students would opt to come here. For a start, the number of places in medical schools in the UK is finite and not everyone gets in, in spite of their eligible grades.
“Studying in the US is also more onerous as they must do a first degree before starting medical school,” he said, noting that the campus will be governed by the British General Medical Council.
This is the third attempt to set up an international medical school in Malta in the past few decades.
Barts is one of Britain’s leading medical and dental schools with 1,600 undergraduates and 750 postgraduates. The school has a strong emphasis on research and attracts £40 million annually in research income.
Maltese doctor at Barts put the idea
“We think that we are good at medical education. We have been doing it for 800 years. We wanted to expand our activities but our opportunities to do so in the UK are limited because of government restrictions. So overseas was our next option,” he said.
Prof. Warrens said that the idea to have satellite campus in Malta came from a Maltese gynaecologist who works at Barts. A meeting was then set up with then Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia and Education Minister Evarist Bartolo around November 2013.
Barts has been liaising closely throughout the discussions with the chief executive officer and medical director at Gozo General Hospital.
“They have been extremely helpful in pointing us in the right direction to develop a high quality programme,” the professor said.
“Gozitans will have a high quality medical facility on their doorstep, which is perhaps now not as well developed as it might be,” he said.
“We will engage a large number of high quality teachers, some of whom will come over from London, giving them the opportunity to contribute to the Maltese health economy. I think it will be a win-win situation.”
“And of course, there is the potential for research, which is one of the most attractive things as far as my colleagues at Queen Mary were concerned. We are very much a research-led university. We have a relationship with Malta Enterprise which has encouraged us to participate in the Life Sciences initiative they are developing in San Ġwann. We are very keen and already started very preliminary conversations about research areas in which we might collaborate.”