MBBS in University of Mauritius Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Medicine

The University of Mauritius was established in 1965 and holds the distinction of being the country's oldest and only national public university. That matters more than it might first seem. When a family is deciding where to send their child for a six-year medical degree, the difference between a private college and a government-backed public university is not just a matter of prestige; it is about stability, accountability, and the long-term credibility of the degree. The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and specifically its Department of Medicine, is UoM's medical arm. It is where that institutional weight actually shows up in practice.

Medical education at UoM did not begin overnight. The university has been involved in health sciences since 1997, when it ran a BSc (Hons) Medical Science programme in partnership with the University of Bordeaux in France. That programme eventually led to an MBChB degree awarded by UoM. The Department of Medicine itself was formally set up in August 2004, bringing together qualified medical academics from the former Department of Health and Medical Sciences and the SSR Centre for Medical Research and Studies. So by the time the current MD programme launched in 2013, there was already a decade and a half of medical education experience sitting behind it.

The MD programme that exists today was built in collaboration with two significant partners; the University of Geneva in Switzerland and the Mauritian Ministry of Health and Wellness. The University of Geneva connection is worth paying attention to. This is not a branding exercise. The partnership shaped the actual curriculum structure, brought in a problem-based learning methodology, and defined the clinical training framework that students go through today. Swiss medical education is known for being rigorous, evidence-based, and carefully sequenced; and that influence is embedded in how UoM teaches medicine.

In September 2020, the University Council formally created the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences as a standalone faculty, separating medical and health science education from the broader Faculty of Science. The FMHS now has two departments under it; the Department of Medicine, which runs the MD programme, and the Department of Health Sciences, which handles allied health disciplines like Physiotherapy, Pharmacy, Nursing, Biomedical Sciences, and Nutritional Sciences. The faculty operates from UoM's main campus in Réduit, Moka; a planned university town in the geographic centre of the island, surrounded by greenery, connected to Port Louis, and genuinely pleasant to live in.

The MD degree is a six-year programme, structured in two halves. Years 1 to 3 form the Bachelor of Medicine phase, covering pre-clinical and para-clinical sciences; anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology, and the foundational knowledge that underpins clinical practice. Years 4 to 6 form the Master of Medicine phase, where students move into full clinical rotations at government hospitals across Mauritius. Year 6 is a dedicated ten-month supervised internship, rotating through all major disciplines before graduation. The research dissertation starts in Year 4 and is submitted at the end of Year 5; so students are doing academic work alongside clinical training, not as a separate isolated exercise.

All teaching is in English. There is no language preparation year, no French requirement, and no Creole needed for academic work. For Indian students, this is a straightforward advantage. The curriculum is taught and examined in the same language in which most Indian students have studied throughout school; and the clinical environment in Mauritius operates in English as well.

Clinical training happens at real government hospitals; Victoria Hospital, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam National Hospital, Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital, Flacq Hospital, and other public health facilities across the island. These are not purpose-built training units attached to a private college. They are functioning public hospitals that serve the Mauritian population, handling genuine emergencies, referrals, and a wide variety of cases across all specialties. Students rotate through these hospitals under the supervision of consultants, which means the clinical exposure is grounded in actual practice, not a controlled simulation environment.

The first batch of students who enrolled in 2013 graduated in September 2019. After completing eighteen months of pre-registration training and passing examinations conducted by the Professional Council, they received full Medical Council of Mauritius registration in June 2022. That full cycle has now been completed. The pathway from enrolment to licensure has been walked by real graduates; it is not theoretical.

The University of Mauritius is listed in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and holds membership in several respected international bodies; the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the Association of African Universities, the Association of Indian Universities, and the International Association of Universities, among others. The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences appears in the World Directory of Medical Schools (WDOMS), which is the fundamental requirement for NMC eligibility in India and for international licensing examinations like the USMLE in the United States and PLAB in the United Kingdom.

For Indian students, the non-academic factors also stack up well. Over 65% of Mauritius's population is of Indian origin. Hindi and Bhojpuri are spoken widely. Indian food is not difficult to find. Festivals are celebrated publicly. The cultural distance between an Indian student and Mauritian daily life is genuinely small compared to studying in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, or most of Southeast Asia. Mauritius is also a politically stable, visa-friendly country with a functioning public healthcare system, low crime, and a standard of infrastructure that makes daily life comfortable rather than stressful.

The cost is a real advantage too. International tuition runs approximately USD 7,500 to 9,000 per year. Living costs in Réduit are modest. Over six years, the all-in cost is a fraction of what private Indian medical colleges charge; and the degree is from a public national university, not a private institution operating with variable oversight. That combination of cost, quality, English-medium instruction, and institutional credibility makes UoM a genuinely strong option for students who want a serious medical education at a price that does not require their family to take on extraordinary financial risk.