“No greater opportunity, responsibility, or obligation can fall to the lot of a human being than to become a physician. In the care of the suffering, [the physician] needs technical skill, scientific knowledge, and human understanding. . . Tact, sympathy, and understanding are expected of the physician, for the patient is no mere collection of symptoms, signs, disordered functions, damaged organs, and disturbed emotions. The patient is human, fearful, and hopeful, seeking relief, help, and reassurance”.

These are the own words of the all time great physician Dr.Tinsley R. Harrison appeared on the preface of the 1st edition of the world renowned text book of Principles of Internal Medicine five decades ago and it is still worth remembering.

Our medical curriculum is designed to achieve these qualities in our products.

As with our university’s mission we train our products to be an intellectual, competent, compassionate and dedicated health care professionals to meet the emerging needs of local, national and international community.

Over a quarter century the department had involved in clinical teaching and patient care amidst shortage of clinical teachers with the help of few dedicated teachers who sacrificed their entire life to teaching, patient care and had been the role models for many out going young graduates. We always had the helping hands of the Government medical unit consultants as extended faculty from the very inception of the medical college. The department had adopted different teaching modalities and examination techniques according the changing trends and we were the first to pioneered the system of OSCE examination in undergraduate stream
We are very proud of our graduates who excelled in the field of clinical medicine, research and medical administration both nationally and internationally. It is important to note that the majority of the consultants and teachers attached to the Teaching Hospital Jaffna are our own products.

With the prevailing conducive environment we are in the process of building our staff strength and hoping to have more collaborative work both with the other state universities and foreign institutions.