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Countdown begins! Matriarch of medical faculties soon to be 150
Please be reminded that the Gala Banquet (organised by the Colombo Medical
Faculty) to mark the 150th Anniversary of the Colombo Medical Faculty
will be held at Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel on February 15th, 2020.
(please click on the above link to see pictures in the article cut and pasted below.)
Countdown begins! Matriarch of medical faculties soon to be 150
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
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Now and then (inset) when the Colombo Medical School began within the General Hospital
They
will be coming home…….hundreds and hundreds nurtured and nourished at
this ‘Maha Gedera’ down Kynsey Road, through whose portals they have
ventured out not only to the far corners of this country but also the
world, will return to pay homage to the matriarch, turning 150 in
February 2020 (next year).
Exuding an old world charm with
its iconic clock tower standing tall along with lots of modern touches,
the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Colombo will welcome with
open arms not prodigals, but men and women who have gone forth to bestow
healing and succour on thousands of people.
As the countdown
begins for the 150th celebrations, fresh-faced medical students walk
around the faculty buildings and its premises, while construction
activity is underway in earnest – a 17-storey building, refurbishment of
the clock tower, greening of the quadrangle and stone-paving of the
internal pathways.
“We
are the second oldest functioning medical school in Sri Lanka and
perhaps in the whole of Asia,” Dr. Prasad Katulanda tells the media,
from a head-table at which sit eminent past and present Professors and
the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Colombo, Senior Prof. Jennifer
Perera.
Over these long years, more than 10,000 doctors have passed out from the Faculty of Medicine, Colombo, it is learnt.
As
the forerunner of university education in the country, for nearly a
century it had been the “only” medical school here. Turning back the
pages of time reveals interesting detail – Ceylonese students were
heading to the Bengal Medical Faculty, India, the oldest medical school
in South Asia, by 1839. By the late 1840s, an American medical
missionary, Samuel Green, had set up a small private medical school in
Manipai in the north, which is not functioning now.
When in the
1860s, Colonial Surgeon Dr. James Loos had to report on why there was an
exodus of men, women and children from the Wanni (a web search reveals
that the country had been hit by yaws, a contagious bacterial disease),
he had suggested that medical facilities should be made available
throughout the country which, in turn, required a system of medical
education.
The august institution that is the Faculty of Medicine
was born within the Colombo General Hospital in 1870 with three
teachers and 25 students, christened as the Colombo Medical School and
opened by then Governor of Ceylon, Sir Hercules Robinson. Its first
Principal was Dr. Loos.
As time passed by, it moved from the arms
of the General Hospital, not going too far though, only across the
road, when Mudaliyar Samson Rajapakse in 1875, gifted the land on which
it stands today.
Renamed the Ceylon Medical College in 1880, it
is in memory of its second Principal, Dr. E.I. Koch (1875) that the Koch
Memorial Clock Tower had risen towards the sky in 1881.
A
‘red-letter year’ had been 1892, when women gained admission to the
medical college with the first licentiate being Alice De Boer.
The
rest, of course, is history – the founding of the Ceylon University
College which was entrusted with the task of conducting the first
professional examination for medical students in 1921; another
name-change as the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ceylon, consisting
of the six departments of Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Medicine,
Obstetrics & Gynaecology and Surgery in 1942 and finally being
re-christened as the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo in 1967.
Interestingly,
the Anatomy Block built in 1913 is the ‘oldest’ building and it was the
Sunday Times which exclusively covered its centenary celebrations back
in 2013.
Developing and expanding in leaps and bounds, not only
in the sphere of academic excellence but also the research being
undertaken within its walls, it is considered the “leader” in medical
training, high-impact locally relevant research and healthcare services
in the country, says Prof. Saroj Jayasinghe.
Whereas earlier
there were only six departments, now the Faculty of Medicine boasts of
19 including Medical Education, Medical Humanities (probably a first in
South Asia), Allied Health Sciences, Family Medicine and Anaesthesiology
& Critical Care.
It is also home to the Human Genetics Unit,
the Sports & Exercise Medicine Unit, the Health & Wellness
Unit, the Virtual Learning Centre, the Skills Laboratory and many more.
Other
feathers in its cap are the establishment of the SARC-CCT (South Asian
Regional Consortium-Centre for Combating Tobacco) in the faculty this
year and earlier the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating
Centres for Medical Education and Training & Research in
Occupational Health.
A vibrant Publishing House pulsates within
its walls where students and academics can publish their writings, while
the Faculty of Medicine also nurtures and preserves what is believed to
be one of the oldest Medical Libraries in Southeast Asia now modernised
too.
While all those who pass through the Faculty of Medicine,
Colombo, get the essential clinical exposure and training at premier
centres of excellence such as the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL),
the Lady Ridgeway Hospital (LRH) for Children, the Castle Street and De
Soysa Hospitals for Women, the National Eye Hospital, the National
Institute of Mental Health, Angoda, and the National Cancer Institute,
Maharagama, and training from the laboratory and other staff of the
Health Ministry, they themselves become the expertise providers to these
and more hospitals across the country.
“Our staff, meanwhile,
provides consultant services to the ministry without payment and manages
wards at the NHSL, the LRH and DMH,” says Prof. Jayasinghe, pointing
out that they also coordinate a renal transplant programme and provide
judicial medical services to the ministry. This is while more honorary
services in the form of preventive and health promotion in the Kotte
area and in the fields of pathology, microbiology, parasitology and
genetics are also extended by the faculty.
| Time to celebrate |
|
The
head-table: (From the right) Emeritus Prof. A.H. Sheriffdeen, Emeritus
Prof. Sanath Lamabadusuriya, Senior Prof. Jennifer Perera, Prof. Saroj
Jayasinghe, Emeritus Prof. Rezvi Sheriff, Emeritus Prof. Harshalal
Seneviratne, Dr. Prasad Katulanda and Dr. Priyankara Jayawardena. Pix by
Priyantha Wickramaarachchi
Set amidst three acres, the
events of the 150th celebrations will be on home-ground with the
exception of the inauguration and banquet being held at hotels and a
medical exhibition for the public at the University of Colombo premises
off Reid Avenue.
“We are planning a series of events to
commemorate this important milestone in the history of our medical
school and the country and to align ourselves to meet the challenges of
the future,” says Dr. Prasad Katulanda, who along with Prof. Saroj
Jayasinghe, is a Co-chair of the Colombo Medical Congress.
The
Colombo Medical Congress with the theme, ‘Medicine in Sri Lanka – The
Legacy & the Future’ is scheduled for February 13-15, with the
exhibition ‘Medivision’ following after, from March 30 to April 5.
The
three-pronged theme of the congress will cover – A Legacy: Historical
developments relating to health in Sri Lanka; The Present: Current
research interests in the faculty; and Our Future: Advances, especially
research advances by our alumni and former teachers.
“The
congress, expected to be one of the biggest medical conferences in the
country, has already attracted many alumni from all over the world who
will contribute academically and inspire future generations of doctors
and medical students,” says Dr. Katulanda.
“We expect at least a
thousand registrants,” he says, appreciative that the faculty’s alumni
association, the Colombo Medical School Alumni Association (CoMSAA), is
collaborating with them in these activities, while Prof. Jayasinghe adds
that all alumni coming from overseas as speakers are funding their own
air-tickets and hotel stays.
Prof. Jayasinghe sends out a final
call to those interested in submitting abstracts that the deadline is
November 15 and more information may be accessed from the website:
colombomedicalcongress.org |
|
| The trailblazer |
|
The Faculty of Medicine, Colombo, has many firsts and achievements. The
first kidney, liver and bone marrow transplants had been performed by
Consultant Doctors from the faculty, while much of the research on
tropical diseases such as malaria, leptospirosis, filariasis,
melioidosis and leishmaniasis has emerged from here and are ongoing.
More
achievements unfold – the sequencing of the Sri Lanka Genome and the
implementation of Genomic Medicine in a clinical setting; the
introduction of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART – simply called
test-tube babies); and a major role in drug regulation, with Prof.
Senaka Bibile being an alumnus.
The ‘high chairs’ of several
institutions such as the University Grants Commission (UGC), the
University of Colombo and medical faculties are occupied by its alumni.
“We
have one of the most prolific research outputs of all Sri Lankan
universities and have formed links with prestigious universities such as
Oxford and Harvard,” says Prof. Saroj Jayasinghe, adding that they are
considered the “mother” not only by virtue of age but because they have
led the field in introducing novel educational methods and shown the way
to improve the quality of education. |
