Q1. What makes Kafrelsheikh University Faculty of Medicine different from Egypt's older medical schools?
+A: It is a purpose-built faculty founded in 2013, offering modern infrastructure and smaller cohorts rather than a century of legacy.
Kafrelsheikh University Faculty of Medicine was not split off from an existing institution or appended to an existing decades-old teaching hospital. Rather, it is a brand-new campus and teaching hospital opened under Republic Decree No. 595 of 2013, making it one of the newest medical faculties in a country boasting several century-old institutions such as Cairo's Kasr Al-Ainy and Alexandria's Faculty of Medicine. That makes a certain difference, as the majority of consultation material on MBBS in Egypt usually starts by mentioning the above-mentioned faculties and then proceeds to mentioning the new Nile Delta faculties only secondarily.
It admitted the first intake of students in the 2013/2014 academic year, using an interim location in the Faculty of Science building while the main campus was being constructed. The official opening ceremony of its building took place on 10 May 2014 and included participation of Egypt's Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research of the time, the Governor of Kafr El-Sheikh and several university presidents.
Why would one prefer a faculty that is no more than a decade old compared to a faculty that boasts a history spanning over a century? Kafrelsheikh did quite well with its quality benchmarking: already by 2015, that is, two years after the admission of the first intake of students, the faculty managed to make its curriculum, its faculty qualifications, and its clinical training conform to FAIMER and WFME requirements, which is an achievement that has taken some faculties decades to achieve. Furthermore, the teaching hospital attached to it is a 433-bed facility equipped with German and Japanese diagnostic equipment, including 3 Tesla MRI, multislice CT, PET-CT imaging, and separate centers for cardiothoracic and chest surgery, kidney and urology treatment, and oncology, besides a separate intensive care wing accommodating over 50 beds and constantly monitored from the control center.
Small class size is another practical difference. Egypt's older public medical faculties are famous for having several hundred students admitted in each intake; Kafrelsheikh has a ratio of about 1 to 9 in favor of students, thus changing quite substantially what a ward round and dissection look like. The MBBCh course consists of six years, consisting of five years of academic study followed by a mandatory one-year rotating internship; it conforms to the current NMC requirements for the degree allowing Indian graduates to pass FMGE or NExT and the degree is included in the World Directory of Medical Schools recognized by WHO.
Kafr El-Sheikh is not Cairo, and that is basically the idea. It is the capital of an agricultural governorate of Nile Delta region, known primarily for rice and cotton farming rather than for traffic and crowds, and those students who come with an intention to study away from the bustle and high prices of a megacity usually notice the difference quite soon. In Kafr El-Sheikh, rent, food and even daily transportation run much cheaper than in Cairo or Alexandria and everything on the campus is in walking distance from anything else.
The price that one pays for that is clear and explicit: a faculty created in 2013 has neither alumni network nor name recognition, nor century of experience that Cairo and Alexandria have to boast. What it offers, however, is new infrastructure, which was constructed to the same modern standard rather than gradually expanded throughout a hundred years, a lower fee structure characteristic of Egyptian public universities and a quiet Nile Delta town rather than a capital city. If the above-described criteria weigh heavier for a potential applicant than pedigree and historical case volume of an institution, then that is a good deal, otherwise not.
Besides, being a public university also impacts the fee structure in a certain way, namely, the fee structure complies with the regulations of Ministry of Higher Education and the faculty does not charge a capitation or donation fee in addition to tuition fee, which is not the case for many private MBBS-abroad destinations. Finally, there are some special features of the fee structure as well, including merit-based reduction of tuition fees: students maintaining excellent cumulative grade receive substantial discounts during the next years of study.
As for Indian students, the list of advantages becomes much shorter but quite evident: the faculty being NMC recognized means access to the FMGE or NExT route, the six-year program structure satisfies NMC guidelines as concerns foreign medical degree and the compactness of the campus means that the hostels and restaurants will have familiar foods available, and that factor is quite practical despite the fact that it is often omitted in admission materials. One has to be aware of the fact that doing some research on each specific batch's placement results and license outcomes is crucial, but as far as initial profile of the faculty is concerned, Kafrelsheikh can be viewed as a calculated risk rather than a blind gamble.
