In first, medical school coming

In a move the government hopes will boost the economy and expand educational opportunities in the Virgin Islands, the territory’s first medical school is set to open next August after years of delays.

Ponce Health Sciences University, which has campuses in Puerto Rico and Missouri, announced Friday that the PHSU School of Medicine in Tortola will launch with an inaugural class of 50 students.

“The school will bring a recurring influx of students who will live in the BVI, buy goods and spend in our businesses,” said Premier Dr. Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley. “I am optimistic that Virgin Islanders will welcome them and develop services for this new kind of resident.”

Registration is now open for the four-year medical-degree programme offered by the for-profit university, which will be based at H. Lavity Stoutt Community College.

During students’ first two years in the programme, they will attend classes in the VI; for their remaining two years, they will study in the United States mainland or Puerto Rico, according to the PHSU website.

Tuition and fees will cost about $70,000 per year, bringing each student’s total spend over four years to about $450,000 once living expenses are included, the website estimated.

Two VI students, however, will receive full scholarships, the school promised.

‘Exclusive space’

HLSCC President Dr. Richard Georges told the Beacon that the medical school will “have some exclusive space on campus as well as some shared access to classrooms and some other facilities.”

He added that the college has provisioned four classrooms to be used by the school during the day.

HLSCC and PHSU have signed a two-year lease agreement, and PHSU President Dr. Gino Natalicchio described the schools’ relationship as “great.”

“I don’t foresee, you know, any reason why not to have a longterm relationship with them,” Dr. Natalicchio told the Beacon.

For the first year, the medical school will have eight to 10 faculty members who it expects to hire by April, according to PHSU Vice President of Medical Affairs Dr. Olga Rodríguez.

Six more faculty members, she said, will be added for the second year, when the student body is expected to increase from 50 to 75.

Impact on the VI

Dr. Natalicchio said the school will benefit the VI and the wider region alike.

“Opening this location in Tortola will make a major difference to students in BVI, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean region and worldwide because it gives them a truly viable and accessible option to complete their studies in medicine,” he said in a Friday press release announcing the launch.

He added that the school will help address the “growing need” for physicians around the world.

Dr. Rodríguez said the school will also bring other benefits to the territory.

“The education of our students includes community services, so I see a lot of the students going and reaching out to the communities to help and provide services,” she said.

Accreditation

The school also announced Friday that it has received provisional accreditation from the Accreditation Commission on Colleges of Medicine, an Ireland-based agency that has been recognised by other accreditation bodies. For example, the US Department of Education’s National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation found the ACCM’s accreditation in the Cayman Islands to be comparable to the US standards. Here in the VI, the school has also received a provisional licence from the territory’s Higher Education Licensing Board through the Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports, according to the press release.

PHSU also has campuses in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and St. Louis, Missouri, and it awards degrees in clinic psychology, biomedical sciences, medical sciences, public health and nursing, according to its website.

“Overall, all PHSU locations currently have an enrollment of almost 2,140 active students, served by over 1,000 professional faculty,” the press release stated.

Years of delays

Efforts to bring a medical school to the territory stretch back at least to 2016, when the House of Assembly passed the Higher Education Licensing Act partly for that purpose.

Three years later, an attempt to bring a medical school then based in Montserrat stalled amid questions about the school’s accreditations and other issues.

Then, in May 2021, then-premier Andrew Fahie announced plans for a medical school to be established that year with an inaugural class of 50 students that he said would expand to 200 in the “near future.” The announcement followed the Cabinet’s approval for Tiber Health Public Benefit Corporation, PHSU’s parent company, to establish a medical school in the territory. The forprofit corporation is headed by PHSU CEO Dr. David Lenihan, a Missouri chiropractor with a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Edinburgh.

In June 2021, the HOA passed a resolution that allowed ACCM, the Ireland-based accreditor, to operate in the VI.