Established in 1784 by royal charter granted by King George III, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland was originally intended to train surgeons for the Napoleonic wars.

Its Medical School was established in 1886 when the training of surgeons and physicians was merged and today the dean of the Faculty of Medicine is Professor Alan Johnson. It is, he says, first and foremost an international medical school, with more than 40 different countries represented in the student body.

"We constantly look at new markets and respond to their demand to provide medically qualified graduates. We would obviously be most interested in training doctors where there are healthcare needs, and we respond to changes in those needs." Many of the Medical School's foreign students are government-sponsored, particularly those from the Middle East and Malaysia. This also includes many students from Norway, a country which is currently experiencing a shortage of doctors.

Most of its foreign students are attracted to the RCSI because of its longstanding reputation and acknowledged internationalism, he believes. Unlike other Irish medical schools, the RCSI gets no direct state funding. Since taking up his current position in 1998, a number of changes have been instituted at the Medical School. For a start, the duties of the dean were substantially increased to form a full-time role, augmented by the creation of six vice-deanships, each of which has support for key academic areas. These include a pre-clinical and clinical vice-deans, as well as vicedeans for admissions, research, student affairs and medical education and curriculum development. "These were established in response to perceived needs for the administration of the faculty," he explains. "The college was growing and there were plans for several academic developments. Essentially, the faculty was being given more responsibility for its affairs."

As part of the development of academic programmes in the college, a school of physiotherapy was established in 1998. "We have had a faculty of nursing and midwifery, for almost three decades, and we run various undergraduate and postgraduate diploma courses in nursing. We are hoping in 2002 that we will be able to establish undergraduate degree courses in nursing. We also have plans at an advanced stage to commence a bachelors degree in pharmacy which we are keen to start as soon as possible." Discussions are also underway to establish other courses in allied health sciences, he says. To this end, over the next 12 months the RCSI intends to establish a Faculty of Health Sciences, which will embrace the schools of medicine, physiotherapy and pharmacy.

Given the nature of medical science, it is no surprise to learn that the curriculum is under constant review. One of the biggest IT innovations at the RCSI in recent years as been the BeST (Basic Surgical Training) online initiative, which was developed in-house by Oscar Traynor, dean of postgraduate surgical studies, using some of the expertise of the Medical School. Changing trends in medicine generally have led the faculty to increase the amount of community-based teaching it offers. "Because so much interaction between patient and doctor occurs in the community, and the duration of hospital stays reduces, it became increasingly important to do this.

"In any case a lot of our graduates will be general practitioners, so it's appropriate that more time be invested in this. This RCSI medical school was in fact the first to appoint a chair in general practice, recognising the importance of community based teaching."

THE academic reputation of any medical school depends on two main factors: the quality of its graduates and the quality of its research, he says. "The quality of our graduates is quantifiable in that they do well when they leave RCSI and achieve at a high level in medicine around the world. Moreover, our research has attracted substantial external funding and is published in prestigious international peer review journals." For those considering their academic future, a medical degree from the RCSI is second to none. Moreover, it can lead to a variety of careers from hospital medicine or general practice, to teaching, working in the pharmaceutical industry and research.

In the past some have followed up their medical studies with a degree in law and a move into the medico-legal area while others have moved into hospital management. "The degree really is an excellent passport for entry into a number of different fields," he says.