“We are proud that we can offer a new school in a different culture our proven program for educating the next generation of physicians,” said Dr. Marjorie Bowman, dean of the Boonshoft School of Medicine.
Wright State faculty members will serve as mentors to help establish the new program, said Dr. Dean Parmelee, associate dean for academic affairs for Boonshoft.
Until now, medical schools in Saudi Arabia have offered only a bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery, or MBBS degree, according to Wright State. Medical programs in the country are taught in English, according to WSU.
The M.D. program will begin in September 2014. At that time, 100 students from a pre-health professionals program will enter a one-year program that mirrors the experience of Boonshoft students, according to WSU.
Sixty of those students will then be selected to continue on with the program, according to WSU.
Parmelee said Saudi Arabia is focused on medical education because only a small percentage of physicians there are from the country. The country is undergoing rapid change, and has devoted 25 percent of its budget to higher education, Parmelee said.
“They want to create and they are rapidly doing so a whole infrastructure of medical education,” he said.
Their new agreement could be renewed for two additional years, and Wright State would be paid $1 million per year, Parmelee said.
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