Dammam-

HE President of Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University “IAU” Prof. Dr./ Abdualla Bin Muhammad Al-Rubaish has today Tuesday 13/2/2024 renewed the agreement of contract with the President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada “RCPSC”, Dr./ Brian David Hodges made by and between the university and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada to accredit the medical fellowship training programs at IAU in presence of the Vice-President for Scientific Research & Innovation Prof. Dr./ Fahd Al-Harbi, Dean of College of Medicine Dr./ Bassam ‘Awary and Prof. Dr./ Amin Al-Ali as well as a number of physicians and faculty of the college and from the Royal College Dr./ Craig Spetly and Mrs./ Tai Alexandra.

On 2017, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University has been accredited by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada as a training center for medical fellowship programs and then on 2023 two fellowship programs have been accredited, namely the university fellowship on Neurology and the university fellowship on Psychiatry by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada being the first two external fellowship programs to be accredited by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in the whole region as well as the first fellowship program to be accredited by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada outside Canada, President of the university Dr./ Abdulla said. During next year, and due to the consolidated cooperation between IAU and RCPSC it is expected that about five to seven other fellowship programs will have been accredited, namely training programs for resident doctors in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, General Surgery, Neurosurgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Ophthalmology as well as the fellowship program in Gynecology, he added. The President of the university has further praised the efforts exerted by the dean of College of Medicine and all the physicians in preparing for renewal of the agreement which reflected positively on the national medical cadres in the college as well as on the college’s scientific and academic future and level.

On his part, the dean of College of Medicine Dr./ Bassam ‘Awary pointed out that the full recognition of the college means that the trainer after completing training years will be eligible to apply for the Canadian fellowship examination in Canada like any trainer inside Canada and he will get a fellowship certificate from the Royal College for Physicians and Surgeons of Canada as well as IAU fellowship certificate being unprecedented matter to find the Neurology and Psychiatry programs, being qualitative programs, to be the first two recognized programs outside Canada and in the Kingdom and hence the university prides itself on realizing such achievement where no other governmental body has previously achieved.

We are working on obtaining recognition of other programs which will be ready during the first half of 2024 and we expect that the accreditation panel will visit the Surgery programs of the Preparatory Year of Study and the fellowship programs of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Dr./ Bassam ‘Awary added. We have further been working on other surgical fellowships such as Urology, Ophthalmology, Neurosurgery and Gynecology, he noted. Once the said agreement has been renewed, we have already paved the way and opened dimensions to achieve our intended aim which is to obtain full recognition for all the programs and fellowships in IAU totaled 17 fellowships from the Canadian Association of Physicians and Surgeons and in Shaa Allah during the next two years we will have been working on a number of programs in order to have all the College of Medicine programs accredited by 2030.