Established in 1996, Penang Medical College (PMC) has become a premier medical college and was recently conferred a six-star rating by the Ministry of Higher Education. This month, PMC produces its 1,000th graduate. Sharyljit Kaur sits with its President, Brendan Lyons, to talk about PMC’s success.
SHARYLJIT KAUR: Can you give us a brief background about the PMC?
BRENDAN LYONS: A little before PMC was established, USM had transferred its medical school from Penang to Kota Bharu. A number of medical professionals here in Penang thought that Penang should have its own medical school. One of them was Datuk Dr Geoffrey Gaik who happened to be a graduate from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). He decided to approach his old college to see if they were interested, and they were. Together with the University College Dublin (UCD), they decided to establish a medical school here in Penang. These are the two biggest medical schools in Ireland and, we would argue, the most prestigious ones.
Institutions and people who were part of the venture were the Penang State Government, RCSI, UCD and Dr Gaik. We took in our first students in 1996, all 14 of them, and they went to Dublin, because even from the very beginning that was the way we operated. We ask our students to do their pre-clinical education in Ireland and their clinical training here in Penang.
Right now, PMC is fully owned by the RCSI and UCD because in the beginning of last year, these two colleges bought out the Penang state government’s stake.
