James Cook University School of Medicine and Dentistry

The College of Medicine and Dentistry is a constituent body of the James Cook University.

Originally opened as the School of Medicine in February 2000, this was Australia's first new medical school in 25 years and the only medical school in northern Australia.It was the first of a wave of new medical schools that were accredited under the Howard Government that include the University of Western Sydney, Notre Dame, and Griffith University. The original intake was 60 medical students.In 2007, the School announced a significant expansion involving a doubling of physical size under a $30 million building expansion plan.

This is jointly funded by the Australian and Queensland Government, the expansion will enable the University to provide facilities for an extra 50 Commonwealth supported medical students each year - an increase of about 50%.In 2014, the restructure of James Cook University saw the School renamed 'College of Medicine and Dentistry'. The discipline of Pharmacy, formerly associated with the School of Pharmacy and Molecular Sciences, was added to the College.

The Medical School was accredited by the Australian Medical Council in 1999.The medical program aims to produce graduates who can progress to medical practice and to further studies in medical specialties. The course places special emphasis on rural and Indigenous health and tropical medicine.

The course is based at the Townsville Campus for the first three years. Year 4 is split between Townsville and Cairns. In the final two years of the course, most students relocate to other teaching sites such as Cairns, Mackay, and Darwin. During these two years students spend most of their learning time in hospitals and health services.

The dental program is based in Cairns. It is a broad-based program which includes all aspects of dental practice but also has a special focus on issues of special concern to the northern Australian region, particularly those relating to tropical, rural and Indigenous practice.

Students receive early exposure to clinical practice, with an increasing proportion of the course dedicated to clinical skills in the later years. The curriculum integrates the basic sciences with dental clinical sciences and preventative oral health strategies. Students will study the first three to four years on the Cairns Campus, and will spend the final year developing their clinical skills on placements in public and private dental clinics across northern Queensland, including Mackay, Proserpine, Atherton, and Thursday Island.

The Dental Program is accredited by the Australian Dental Council and the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons.

The pharmacy program is a four-year undergraduate degree based in Townsville. Students receive over 600 hours of clinical placement in hospital, community and clinical pharmacy settings. The program took its first intake of students in 1999 after the course was developed in response to workforce shortages in northern Australia. Research facilities for both pharmacy practice and clinical pharmacy, and the pharmaceutical sciences, are available in the facilities in Townsville. The discipline offers a Master of Pharmaceutical Public Health.

Sydney Medical School

Sydney Medical School (SMS) is the graduate medical school of the University of Sydney. It is currently ranked as the top medical school in Australia and among the top 20 universities for medicine on an international level by US News and the QS World University Rankings.

Established in 1856, Sydney Medical School is the oldest medical school in Australia.It has a large and diverse faculty to support its missions in education, research, and health care. Each year, it has over 1,100 medical students and 2,000 postgraduate students undertaking coursework and research-training programs.

Sydney Medical School was established in 1856 as The University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine by a group of University of Edinburgh Medical School graduates, Thomas Peter Anderson Stuart, Charles Nicholson and Alexander McCormick.

Sydney Medical School offers a four-year graduate medical program. Key course features include a hybrid problem-based learning model, early clinical exposure, online learning resources, and a focus on evidence-based medicine, which were modelled on aspects of the New Pathway Doctor of Medicine (MD) program at Harvard Medical School.The curriculum has won numerous teaching awards and is licensed to universities in the UK, South Africa and the Middle East and to other universities in Australia.

First introduced in 1997, the graduate medical program originally led to the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) for historical reasons. Since 2014, the MD has replaced the MBBS as the title of the medical degree conferred by the Sydney Medical Program.

Entry into the Sydney Medical Program is on the basis of a satisfactory grade point average, the Graduate Australian Medical School Admissions Test score, and performance in a multiple mini-interview. Each year's cohort has approximately 300 students enrolled, an appreciable proportion of which are international students.

The School also offers an undergraduate-entry, "combined medicine" pathway, in which a provisional place is held in the Sydney Medical Program for students until they complete one of the following three-year undergraduate degrees at the University:

-Bachelor of Commerce
-Bachelor of Economics
-Bachelor of Medical Science
-Bachelor of Music Studies
-Bachelor of Science (Advanced)

Securing such a place is highly competitive, as only ten to thirty such places are offered each year. Entry is on the basis of the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) or equivalent, and a semi-structured panel interview. For Music Studies-Medicine only, an additional audition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music is required.

Since the introduction of this admissions pathway in 2005,the ATAR cut-off or equivalent has consistently been 99.95 (except for Music Studies-Medicine, which has been 99.50),the highest cut-off of any undergraduate-entry program offered in Australia.

In 2009, an alternate pathway consisting of five additional places in Medical Science-Medicine and Science (Advanced)-Medicine was introduced specifically for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) high school graduates.

Melbourne Dental School

The Melbourne Dental School is one of the graduate schools of the University of Melbourne. In addition to the 4-year graduate dental program, Melbourne offers speciality training programs combined with the Doctor of Clinical Dentistry degree, advanced training programs, and research degrees including M.Sc. and Ph.D. programs.

In 1884, a group of dentists formed the Odontological Society of Victoria with the aims of the regulation and education of dentists in the state of Victoria. Mr. John Illife (1847–1914), a member and later President of the Odontological Society of Victoria, was the driving force in negotiations for the regulation of dentistry in Victoria and the establishment of a hospital and college in Melbourne.

Thanks largely to his efforts, the Melbourne Dental Hospital opened its doors in 1890 and was followed in 1897 by the Australian College of Dentistry devoted solely to the education of dentists.

In 1904, a Faculty of Dental Science was established and the College was affiliated with the University of Melbourne. In 1963, the Faculty and the hospital moved from 193 Spring Street to the new Royal Dental Hospital at 711 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne.

In 1989, the Faculty of Dentistry merged with the Faculty of Medicine (established 1876) to create a new Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry consisting of a School of Medicine and a School of Dental Science. To reflect additional responsibilities, the faculty expanded in 1991 to become the present Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences.

The Melbourne Dental School has a strong tradition in dental research and an established international reputation in several research areas. Research in the School is an integral component of staff and student activities underpinning both the undergraduate and graduate curricula.

The major research activities of the School are conducted by four Research groups. This research covers a vast area of scientific research from basic science to clinical studies and involves a range of scientific disciplines.

The School published 46 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals in 2003 and attracted over $8 million in external grants from government agencies (National Health and Medical Research Council and Medical Research Council, Australian Research Council etc.) and industry.

Research within the School has led to several products, including Recaldent, a unique product which helps prevent and reverse dental decay.

The Melbourne Dental School is one of five participants in the Victorian Centre for Oral Health Science established in 2003 with an infrastructure grant (major equipment grant) from the Victorian State Government.

The Melbourne Dental School was a core party in the Cooperative Research Centre for Oral Health Science (CRC-OHS) from 2004 - 2010. The success of the CRC resulted in an extension being granted, with the Oral Health Cooperative Research Centre (Oral Health CRC) commencing in January 2010.

In 2009, an Oral Health Therapists Graduate Study was being conducted at the Melbourne Dental School. This study is being jointly funded by both the Dental Hygienists Association Australia and the Victorian Dental Oral Health Therapists Association. Ethical approval was granted for this study with all findings to be made public in October 2009 on "Research Day".

The Melbourne Dental School is a participant in the Bio21 Institute with research encompassing a wide variety of sub-disciplines, including structural chemistry, bacterial biofilms and peptide vaccine technology.

The Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum contains over 2500 objects, photographs, documents and catalogues relating to the history of dentistry and dental education in Victoria. Objects in the collection date from the early 18th century and provide insights into the changes and developments within the dental profession and its striving to improve the standard of dental education, dental health and dental care within Victoria.

The Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum is located on the ground floor, 720 Swanston Street Melbourne, in the same building occupied by The Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne.

Australian National University Medical School

The Australian National University Medical School (ANUMS) is a graduate medical school that received the Australian Medical Council (AMC) accreditation for the M.B., B.S. program in November 2003. Under the leadership of the Foundation Dean, Professor Paul Gatenby, the first cohort of students commenced in February 2004. The current Dean of Medicine is Professor Nicholas Glasgow and Deputy Dean of Medicine Professor David Ellwood.

The medical school houses nationally and internationally renowned academics and clinicians, including Dr. Simon O'Connor, co-author of the popular clinical textbook, Clinical Examination.

The first enrolment was in 2004. The ANUMS program is a four-year graduate medical degree, being thematic in concept and using problem based learning as the principal method of instruction particularly in the first two years.

The themes include:
-Medical Sciences - 45%
-Clinical Skills - 30%
-Population Health - 15%
-Professionalism and Leadership - 10%

These themes were selected as being important knowledge and professional domains that medical graduates will need in the 21st century. Doctors require competency in basic medical sciences such as anatomy and physiology as well as defined clinical skills. This includes communicating with patients and their relatives, being able to elicit a history, examine a patient and use the principles of evidence based practice. Population health grows in importance as the world’s population grows; doctors must appreciate that there are perspectives different from their individual patients' and that great health gains are really only made at the population level. Doctors also require an understanding of health law medical ethics and international human rights as well as an ability to reflect on their own performance and capacity.

Teaching is on the ANU campus, particularly in the first two years. Patient contact is from early in the course with much of the last two years taught in the health sector, both in the ACT and in surrounding NSW. In the ACT the principal teaching hospital is the Canberra Hospital. Students also go to Calvary Hospital, to facilities of ACT Community Care and selected general practices. In surrounding NSW a Rural Clinical School has been established. A select group of students will be invited to spend the third year of the course in a rural curriculum that runs parallel to the urban based curriculum.

The ANU Medical School has links with the ACT Department of Health and Community Care and the Southern Area Health Service of the NSW Health system. Canberra, the "bush capital", is very close to the small population centres of south-eastern NSW. The school takes advantage of the diversity of the surrounding area and provides rural experience from very early in the course in locations such as Yass, Queanbeyan, Bega, Batemans Bay, Goulburn and Cooma, all of which are within a few hour's travelling distance of Canberra, as well as Young. Students have the opportunity to spend one of their clinical years in a rural setting, learning medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology synchronously while their urban colleagues rotate through traditional blocs.

Admission was previously via a combination of grade point average (GPA) of a previous undergraduate degree and the Graduate Australian Medical School Admissions Test (GAMSAT) weighted 50:50 and a pass/fail interview. From 2013 entry onwards, the GPA and GAMSAT score are weighted 50:50 to produce a ranked list of applicants for the interview, and offers of place are based on a total score of 50:50 weighting of the composite score (used for the interview ranking) and the interview score. Places include Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP), Bonded Medical Places (BMP), Medical Rural Bonded Places (MRBS) and International Full Fee Places (IFP).

Flinders University

Flinders University, commonly referred to as simply Flinders, is a public university in Adelaide, South Australia. Founded in 1966, it was named in honour of navigator Matthew Flinders, who explored and surveyed the South Australian coastline in the early 19th century.

Flinders is a verdant university and a member of the Innovative Research Universities (IRU) Group and ranks in the 10-16 bracket in Australia and 36th in the world of those established less than 50 years. Academically, the university pioneered a cross-disciplinary approach to education, and its faculties of medicine and the humanities are ranked among the nation's top 10.The university is ranked within the world's top 400 institutions in the Academic Ranking of World Universities.The latest Times Higher Education rankings of the world’s top universities ranks Flinders University in the 251 to 300 bracket.

By the late 1950s, the University of Adelaide's North Terrace campus was approaching capacity. In 1960, Premier Thomas Playford announced that 150 hectares (370 acres) of state government-owned land in Burbank (now Bedford Park) would be allocated to the University of Adelaide for the establishment of a second campus.

Planning began in 1961. The principal-designate of the new campus, economist and professor Peter Karmel, was adamant that the new campus should operate independently from the North Terrace campus. He hoped that the Bedford Park campus would be free to innovate and not be bound by tradition.

In 1965, the Australian Labor Party won the state election and Frank Walsh became premier. The ALP wished to break up the University of Adelaide's hegemony over tertiary education in the state, and announced that they intended the Bedford Park campus to be an independent institution.

On 17 March 1966, a bill was passed by state parliament officially creating the Flinders University of South Australia.Although the Labor Party had favoured the name "University of South Australia", academic staff wished that the university be named after a "distinguished but uncontroversial" person. They settled upon British navigator Matthew Flinders, who explored and surveyed the South Australian coastline in 1802. Its coat of arms, designed by a professor in the Fine Arts faculty, includes a reproduction of Flinders' ship Investigator and his journal A Voyage to Terra Australis, open to the page in which Flinders described the coast adjacent the campus site.

The University's main campus is in the Adelaide inner southern suburb of Bedford Park, about 12 km south of the Adelaide city centre.The University also has a presence in Victoria Square in the centre of the city, and Tonsley. It also maintains a number of external teaching facilities in regional South Australia, south-west Victoria and the Northern Territory. International students make up 10% of the on-campus student population and a number of offshore programmes are also offered, primarily in the Asia-Pacific region.

Flinders University offers more than 160 undergraduate and postgraduate courses, as well as higher degree research supervision across all disciplines. Many courses use new information and communication technologies to supplement face-to-face teaching and provide flexible options.

University of New South Wales

The University of New South Wales (UNSW; branded as UNSW Australia) is an Australian public research university located in the suburb of Kensington in Sydney, established in 1949.

UNSW attracts the highest median Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank in Australia,and sets the highest combined ATAR cut-offs out of any Australian university. It was ranked among the top 50 universities in the world in the 2015-16 QS World University Rankings. The university is particularly strong in engineering and technology, commerce and economics, and law; the 2015 QS World University Rankings by Subject ranked UNSW to be 12th in the world for accounting and finance, 15th for law, and 21st in engineering and technology. UNSW has produced more millionaires,and its graduates hold more chief executive positions of ASX 200 listed companies,than any other university in Australia.

The university comprises eight faculties, through which it offers bachelor, master and doctoral degrees. The main campus is located on a 38-hectare site in the Sydney suburb of Kensington, seven kilometres from the centre of Sydney. The creative arts faculty, UNSW Art & Design, is located in Paddington, UNSW Canberra is located at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra and sub-campuses are located in the Sydney CBD, the suburbs of Randwick and Coogee. Research stations are located throughout the state of New South Wales.

The idea of founding the university originated from the crisis demands of World War II, during which the nation's attention was drawn to the critical role that science and technology played in transforming an agricultural society into a modern and industrial one.The post-war Labor government of New South Wales recognised the increasing need to have a university specialised in training high-quality engineers and technology-related professionals in numbers beyond that of the capacity and characteristics of the existing University of Sydney.This led to the proposal to establish the Institute of Technology, submitted by the then New South Wales Minister for Education Bob Heffron, accepted on 9 July 1946.

The lion and the four stars of the Southern Cross on the St George's Cross have reference to the State of New South Wales which established the university; the open book with scientia ("knowledge") across its pages is a reminder of its purpose. The placement of scientia on the book was inspired by its appearance on the arms of the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine formed in 1907. Beneath the shield is the motto Manu et Mente ("With hand and mind"), which was the motto of the Sydney Technical College from which the university developed.

An update of the design and colours of the arms was undertaken in 1970, which provided a more contemporary design, yet retained all the arms' heraldic associations. In 1994 the university title was added to the UNSW arms, as was the abbreviation "UNSW", to create the UNSW symbol which is used for everyday and marketing purposes.

There is also a university flag, which consists of the coat of arms centred on a mid blue field. The blue field of the flag is lined with a yellow band on all sides. There is a further outer band of black on all sides which is equal in width to the yellow band.

The university is governed by council of 15 members including parliamentary and ex-officio members, members elected by staff, students and graduates of the university as well as members appointed by the Minister for Education or by the council itself. It is responsible for acting on the university's behalf to promote its objectives and interests.

The principal academic body is the academic board, which receives advice on academic matters from the faculties, college (Australian Defence Force Academy) and the boards of studies. It is responsible for academic policy setting, academic strategy via its eight standing committees, approval and delivery of programs, and academic standards. The board comprises 56 members, including the vice-chancellor, members of the executive team, deans and faculty presiding members, 24 members elected from the academic staff and four from the student body.

 Membership also includes "such other persons" approved by council. The academic board advises the vice-Chancellor and council on matters relating to teaching, scholarship and research and takes decisions on delegation from the council. Its purpose is to make academic policy; approve courses and programs; further and co-ordinate the work of the faculties and other academic units; and support teaching, scholarship and research.

The main UNSW campus is situated in Kensington, Sydney. Two of the university's faculties are situated elsewhere. The College of Fine Arts is located in the inner suburb of Paddington. UNSW Canberra at ADFA is situated in Canberra.

The university also has additional campuses and field stations in Randwick, Coogee, Botany, Dee Why, Cowan, Manly Vale, Fowlers Gap, Albury and at Bankstown Airport.

The main UNSW campus is divided geographically into two areas: upper campus and lower campus. The site of the lower campus was vested in the university in two lots in December 1952 and June 1954, while the upper campus was vested in the university in November 1959.These two are separated mainly by an elevation rise between the quadrangle and the Scientia building. It takes roughly fifteen minutes to walk from one extreme to the other.

University of Newcastle School of Medicine and Public Health

The University of Newcastle (UoN) School of Medicine, located at the University of Newcastle, is one of only eight medical schools in Australia that offers an undergraduate medical degree, and is the shortest undergraduate medical degree offered at a public university in Australia. The only other shorter course is that offered by Bond University.The first cohort of medical students began in 1978 and the school has educated more Indigenous medical students than any other University in Australia.

The University of Newcastle led a major change in medical education in Australia in the late 1970s by introducing Problem-based learning, early clinical skills acquisition, community orientation,and the addition of personal qualities evaluation to the student selection process.A focus on rural medical experience has been in place for many years, and the school now offers its medical program as a partnership with the University of New England, Hunter New England Health and Northern Sydney Central Coast Health. Known as the Joint Medical Program (JMP) it is the first jointly run medical program in Australia.

The University of Newcastle's Medical School was established in 1975 as the Faculty of Medicine. Under the steerage of Professor David Maddison (Founding Dean),it very quickly gained an international reputation for excellence and innovation in teaching and learning. Its problem-based curricula coupled with early clinical experience starting in the first year of the degree program, offered students a different approach to the study of medicine compared to other Universities that delay clinical experience.

Approximately 76 academic, 88 general and about 600 conjoint academic staff conduct research, teach into or support the medical and health education programs across 45 disciplines of Medicine within the School.

Student numbers for the medical program have more than doubled since the first intake in 1978 of 63 to the current cohort of almost 190 students in the Joint Medical Program located across the Callaghan and Armidale campuses. Program delivery has been developed and updated over the past 30 years, but the basics still remain and the school continues to provide early clinical experience to support its problem based learning curricula.

The curriculum for the new Joint Medical program, based on the established University of Newcastle program, is identical at both institutions. The special features of the JMP include its focus on medical workforce for rural, remote and regional Australia and the opportunity provided by the geographic coherence between the two Universities and their two major health partners, Hunter New England Health and Northern Sydney Central Coast Health.

The Bachelor of Medicine – JMP is characterised by an integrated problem-based curriculum with early clinical exposure and substantial community involvement. Emphasis is placed on understanding clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, learned in the context of the relevant basic science concepts and mechanisms. The integrated program requires students to make connections between the different areas in medicine and the basic sciences in order to apply them to specific medical problems.

The curriculum differs from traditional programs in its integration of basic and clinical sciences and its early orientation towards clinical practice in medicine. The curriculum centres on problem-based, self-directed learning where students work in small tutorial groups to analyse clinical problems, and to gain an understanding of relevant scientific data. Students in the first few years learn in small groups of around 8 students, groups which are balanced in regards to age, gender and experience.

The University of Newcastle Medical Society (UNMS) is the peak representative organisation for medical students at the university of Newcastle. The Society (affectionately known as ‘medsoc’ on campus) represents over 650 medical students. Since starting in 1978 the UNMS has grown and matured into a multi-faceted organisation that organises a broad range of services for its members, including: representation, academic events, charity initiatives, welfare support, social events and sporting events.