Although the educational models are changing to offer courses more adapted to the current times, there are traditional studies that still prevail. One of them is medicine. In Colombia, according to a measurement between OECD countries, by 2020 there were, approximately, for every 1,000 inhabitants, a total of 1.5 doctors generals. For that same year, according to the National Academy of Medicine, there were 63 faculties, of those 18 correspond to official ones and 45 private ones.
But, which are the best to study medicine? According to the annual delivery of the Times Higher Education 2023 in the World University Rankings by Subject, which highlights the leading universities in medicine, dentistry and other health subjects (and that this year the table includes 1,001 universities, compared to 925 last year , worldwide), the University of Oxford leads this list.
Even so, in Colombia the one that is in the lead in medicine is the National University in the ranking 251-300 and a ratio of 39 women to 61 men. It is followed by Icesi University in the range of 301 to 400. In this same range, in third place is the Javeriana University with a ratio of 55 women to 45 men.
“The different global scores give accreditations to the programs and that helps to be in different rankings. Among those, La Javeriana has always stood out for scoring, we usually come out in first, second or third. The Javeriana in this faculty has a tradition of almost 80 years. Clearly, at the international level, where the level of citations and research is better than foreign universities, because they have more investment resources and elements,” said Carlos Gómez Restrepo, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá.
“Notably Javeriana University is the only one that has two university hospitals, in alliance with the Jesuit community. There is the San Ignacio Hospital, a magnificent place for practice and teaching. We also have Javesalud and some excellent agreements with hospitals and many have achieved university accreditation such as the Barraquel Clinic, Santa Clara Hospital, among others,” added Gómez.
Followed in the ranking is in fourth place, the University of Los Andes in the ranking of 601-800 and the top five is closed by the University of Antioquia (they highlight its public nature).
“The Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad de los Andes stands out for having an undergraduate program with high-quality accreditation, which was obtained for the first time in 2016 and was renewed in 2020. We have a program that believes in the formation of integral doctors with high standards of interdisciplinary work that guarantees an excellent professional practice for Colombia and the rest of the world. Added to an integrated curricular design that links basic medical sciences, basic non-medical sciences, and clinical sciences throughout the degree, allowing reliable and competitive professional activities to be carried out in the labor market, explained Diego Vivas, undergraduate director of the faculty. of Medicine of the University of the Andes.
And I add: “Our Medicine program has been maintained since its first class of graduates, between positions one to four in the national ranking of Medical Schoolsand in the last two years we have achieved the best performance in the internal exam of the Colombian Association of Medical Schools (Ascofame)”.
In position six, the Universidad del Rosario is located at 801. In the same ranking are El Bosque University, the Industrial University of Santander (UIS), the Pontifical Bolivarian University (UPB) and finally, to close the top 10 at the local level is the University of La Sabana.
The dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad de la Sabana, Álvaro Romero Tapia, talks regarding the program and why it stands out in the rankings.
“We have a series of rankings organized by private institutions such as Time Higher Education, which has been gaining more and more prestige. We believe that medical programs are complex and include elements that are difficult to measure, beyond the specific or generic skills that can be evaluated, such as humanistic or ethical elements, and that sometimes the rankings are not enough to measure them. In this way, returning to the analogy, we can say that the rankings are a photo and the programs are a video, where for six or seven years there is a training process and that its measurement should take into account more robust indicators. However, they also have a legitimacy that has an impact.”
Medicine careers continue to be one of the most desired in the country; however, there are still challenges to be met. Among these, the academic and labor links of the universities with the different medical centers and support for teachers.
“In Colombia it is necessary to have higher standards of education and a more committed staff. A committed health system and that higher education institutions establish good agreements for practices that carry out the same educational projects so that there is the same school. I would say that the best doctors in the world are being trained in Colombia and they have many options at the international and national level. Unfortunately, several of our graduates are emigrating to other places, which is not ideal, but places are opening up for them in countries like the United States, Germany or Spain. This is because we teach them to be very decisive. Colombian doctors can attend to between 70% and 80% of the health complexities that come to them”, adds Gómez.
The international ladder
In the world, the position of the best universities with the most outstanding health careers, according to the World University Rankings 2023 by topic: clinic and health, continues to be held by the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom for the twelfth consecutive year. There are only two institutions in the table in the top 10 that are not from the United States or the United Kingdom: China’s Tsinghua University and Canada’s University of Toronto, which traded places, with China’s ranking fifth and that of Canada in position seven.
