Trainee dental surgeons to pay full fees

The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) would, beginning this academic year, run Dentistry as a full fee-paying programme.

Professor William Otoo Ellis, Vice-Chancellor, said the decision was borne out of the escalating cost in training medical students.

“Students who patronize the programme will be paying a bit higher than the normal fees,” he said, while addressing an Oath-Swearing and Induction ceremony of the School of Medical Sciences and Dental School, KNUST, in Kumasi at the week-end.

A total of 104 medical doctors and seven dental surgeons were inducted under the supervision of the Ghana Medical and Dental Council after taking the Hippocratic Oath.

KNUST, thus, had trained 1, 874 medical doctors and 15 dental surgeons since the inception of the school some three decades ago.

In-spite of identifying medicine as a key component of its academic programmes, the university’s efforts in training the needed health personnel are being hampered by the lack of adequate infrastructure.

Professor Ellis indicated that the enormity of pressure on the authorities to provide more avenues for medical training could be lessened with the active involvement of stakeholders, corporate bodies and philanthropists.

Plans, he said, were underway for the construction of a classroom complex at the clinical students’ hostel at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and that drawings covering the project had been completed.

The Vice-Chancellor reminded the doctors that in order to attain optimal healthcare, it was imperative that they worked in close collaboration with nurses, pharmacists, laboratory technicians and radiologists, as well as all other related health personnel.

Dr. Francis Adu-Ababio, Dean of the Dental School, commended the Schools of Dentistry, University of Utah and Michigan, United States, for their assistance in clinical and elective programmes to help build the capacity of the medical students.

Source: GNA