MoBay’s medical college going global - Accreditation being sought from Ireland’s Royal College

Western Bureau:

The Montego Bay based International Postgraduate Medical College (IPMC) is now on the verge of getting accreditation for its Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Programme, which is a master's degree programme, from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

As part of the accreditation exercise, a team from the Royal College of Surgeons, led by Dr John Walsh, its immediate past dean, recently visited IPMC to have a first-hand look at its facilities and programmes.

"We were quite delighted to have Dr Walsh and his team visiting us here in Montego Bay to look at the facility here at the IPMC," said Dr Christopher Ogunsalu, the Nigerian-born naturalised dentist who founded the IPMC in 2011.

The team from Ireland, which also featured Dr Sean Sheridan, the chairman of the Inspection Committee of the Royal College of Surgeons, was taken on a tour of the IMPC facilities by Dr Ken Judy, the co-chairman of the International Congress of Oral Implantologists and the Provost at the IPMC.

"During the visit and inspection of our training facility, the members of the Royal College team looked at our syllabus and even interviewed students and the faculty staff," said Ogunsalu. "I think they got a good feel of what we are doing as the feedback was excellent."

The Faculty of Dentistry of the IPMC is the first dental faculty of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean. It is also the first local institution to have structured postgraduate programmes, which benefited dentists across the World.

According to Ogunsalu, setting up the IPMC programmes is not new to him as he was the man behind the setting up of the Undergraduate Dental Degree programme of the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies, under Professor Archibald McDonald.

That programme, which kicked off in 2009, was the first undergraduate dental programme in Jamaica.

"The most important thing is that we are ready for the graduating dentists from both UWI and UTech to begin postgraduate dental studies and training. ... We will not discriminate, we will rather unify and consolidate the effort of the administration of both universities."

Ogunsalu became somewhat of a celebrity in regional dental circles after using his skills in 2014 to identify the remains of Trinidadian Michelle Coudray Greaves, who was murdered and her body burnt beyond recognition in St James.