Today, medical schools differ in how they utilize personal statements in the admissions process. At Oceania University of Medicine (OUM), we call it the Admissions Essay. You may have heard that medical schools don't care about them anymore, but that is not true: They just use them differently — often ...

Getting into medical school is competitive. Period. Year after year, many countries have more applications submitted to their medical schools than they have slots available.   As a result, many prospective medical students apply to and attend medical schools in another country. There are many fine medical schools throughout the world, ...

COVID was clearly an interruption during the past two years for most medical schools and students nearing the end of their studies. At Oceania University of Medicine (OUM), one of the most unfortunate casualties was the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), the final clinical exam among a medical student's long ...

"Technology is not a replacement for history-taking in reaching a patient diagnosis," says Clinical Associate Professor Viali Lameko, MBBS, MIPH, PhD Candidate, Dean for Samoa and the South Pacific at Oceania University of Medicine. “Every physician would agree that history-taking is the most important part of clinical assessment and ...

The Canadian Medical Association detailed the country's physician shortage in a May statement, noting that Statistics Canada, the nation's statistical office, reported in 2019 that approximately 4.6 million Canadians did not have regular access to a primary care provider. Since that statement, a report on the Canadian Health Workforce Network ...

“Can medical school be taught online?” In 2002, when Oceania University of Medicine (OUM) was founded, many members of the medical community said no. In truth, the answer is "Yes" for the first half (Basic Sciences) of the degree program and "Absolutely not" for the second half. “Clinical training during ...

All medical schools have Journal Club. Why? “Students must begin learning how to read and assess journal articles in order to ultimately provide better patient care,” says Ahmed Muhsin, MBChB, MPH, Director of Research at OUM and facilitator of its weekly Journal Club. “Reading journal articles should be a part ...