About GCMS

The Gondar College of Medical Sciences is located in Gondar, once the capital city of Ethiopia in the North-western part of the country. The college is the oldest health professional training institute in Ethiopia, first established as Public Health College in 1954.

The concept, which led to the establishment of the college, was based upon the immediate felt needs for health services in rural Ethiopia. The country had at that
time very limited health service facilities and trained manpower where health services were very inadequate. To meet this urgent demand in as short time as possible, a
training program of rather unique nature was devised.

It was for the implementation of this programme that the college was established.
The purpose was, in brief, to educate the required categories of health workers in a manner, which would adopt them to tackle the problems relevant to the health needs
of rural Ethiopia. The training programs for three categories of health workers were organised in such a way that, by the timeof graduation, the health professionals
working in teams, would be ready to staff rural Health Centres all over the empire.
These health teams, under the leadership of the health officers, were to form the
nucleus of health services in Ethiopia. Upon graduation, the team members were assigned to Health Centres as qualified health workers, each in her/his respective
area of competence. Judged from the actual performance of the health centre
units and from the appreciation of the population in all parts of Ethiopia, it was
once stated that no other single institution in Ethiopia of that time has produced graduates that have fitted well in to the immediate felt needs of the country as has
this college.

Whereas the focus of professionals training institutes of that time has been mainly on the understanding of disease processes as they affect individuals, on their diagnosis and management, Gondar college has firmly instated public health (community health) in its training, service and research activities. Due to this uniqueness, at the beginning of the college there was no pattern of curriculum to follow because this college was the only one of its kind in the whole world. The national recognition to Excellency of the college curriculum was depicted at least from the recent memory that the college has developed the curriculum of "health team training" for three of Ethiopia's health professionals training higher institutions.