Nile University is rapidly accommodating more students in the Faculty of Medicine each year. We are proud graduating our 10^th Batch this year.

Our goal is to continuously evolve as one of the leading academic departments of Paediatrics in Sudan focusing on excellence in teaching and training providing undergraduate students and clinical training of the next generation of paediatric health care professionals with necessary competencies.

Preservation of health through preventive interventions and health promotion activities are essential duties of doctors for keeping children, families and communities healthy. Child development and mental and social empowerment are key goals to achieve optimal child health.

The MBBS curriculum includes four courses in Paediatrics and Child Health in semesters (IX, X, XI, XII).  In previous semesters there were courses that address important aspects of paediatrics such as nutrition, growth & development and an introduction to various common paediatric problems.

The curriculum addresses the forementioned perspective as well as empowering graduates with the necessary attitudes, knowledge and skills to deal with children and their families and to keep children healthy and promote their growth and development. We aim at graduating competent doctors to deal with the sick child and give  priority to prevention of  health problems of childhood.

 The courses:

On completion of the courses offered during the 5^th, 6^th years of the curriculum, the graduates will be expected to have acquired the following knowledge, skills, professional behaviours and attitudes:

1. Identify the demography, childhood phases and definitions, major causes of childhood mortalities and morbidities and the impact of social determinants on child health.
2. Take a structured and focused pediatric history, perform and document a comprehensive clinical examination of newborns, young infants, children and adolescents.
3. Develop a clinically oriented problem solving approach including relevant differential diagnosis and evidence based relevant management plans focusing on emergency and priority childhood health problems.
4. Competently perform essential paediatric procedures.
5. Identify and offer necessary child health preventive interventions at individual, family and community levels.
6. Competently cousel children and their parents on management plans, preventive measures and advocate for health through promotive child health activities.
7. Promote himself through self learning activities.

The major course content are as follows:

1. Paediatric history taking& examination.
2. Growth &Development
3. Infant feeding & Nutrition
4. Malnutrition
5. Immuinzation & Immunizable diseases
6. Infectious diseases
7. Tropical diseases
8. IMCI
9. Respiratory system diseases
10. Cardiovascular system diseases
11. Central Nervous system diseases
12. Haematology
13. Renal diseases
14. Gastrointestinal diseases
15. Endocrine glands diseases
16. Childhood malignancies
17. Musculoskeletal disorders
18. Common dermatological conditions

Staff:

Senior Staff:

Senior staff are committed to Nile University as founding members and members of NGHE are advisors to the departments. Their contribution to the paediatrics & child health in Sudan is significant:

 At national level they had leadership roles in the Ministry of Health Consultative Council, MCH, Child Health National Task Force, EPI, Nutrition, and Non Communicable Diseases ( DM, Endocrinology and Gastroenterology).

Professor Zein Karrar was Chairperson of Sudan Medical Council (SMC) for two tenures and managed to implement the accreditation System to medical schools in Sudan. During his leadership (SMC) obtained recognition from the World Federation of Medical Education (WFME).

Continuous educational development is an important corner to ensure our staff are up to date in gaining knowledge as well as educational and clinical skills. We continuously encourage our staff to attend courses and workshops. Most of our staff has attended & participated in the medical education workshops organised by the EDU at Nile University, these included workshops on Teaching & Learning, Student’s assessment, OSCE, and curriculum development.

Two of our staff are holding masters in Medical Education from  the University of Khartoum.

Staff members:

– Professor Zein A Karrar

               –  Associate professor   Dr Layla Ali A/Rahman

  – Assistant professor & Head of Department Dr Ibtisam Faroug

               – Assistant professor Dr Wogdan Mahmoud

               – Assistant professor Dr Nuha Sharafaldin

               – Assistant professor Dr Nuha Awad Alkareem

              – Assistant professor Dr Lamees Abdulnaser

              – Assistant professor Dr Nuha Seraj

Curriculum implementation & Monitoring:  We managed to implement the paediatric curriculum efficiently according to provided time tables for both 5^th &   6^th year during the pandemic; and the progress was monitored by weekly progress report, many thanks to our hard working team.

Students’ feedback:

We are privileged and proud to state that we have the best feedback from students regarding our staff performance throughout the previous years.

Student’s Assessment:

We were pleased to receive an excellent feedback from our external examiners, regarding the academic performance of our Final MBBS students and their attitude and professional conduct (last year the pass rate was 86.5%).

Community accountability & Hospital work:

With regard to our responsibility towards the community the department has two paediatric units in Ahmed Gasim Specialised Hospital for Children providing health services for paediatric patients and contributing in the training of residents and house-officers, and cooperating with the administration in many committees in the hospitals in addition to covering extra duties at times of crises.

In these two units each Unit is led by one senior consultant and 2 specialists.

Our work load is as follows:

Weekly Unit activities:

1. Students’ (year 5 & 6) teaching rounds 8 groups every week.
2. Once weekly 24 hours on-call duty.
3. Grand round.
4. Discharge clinic & tutorial.
5. Referral clinic.
6. Our specialists actively fulfil their unit activities in the hospital including morning report, mortality meeting, teaching paediatric residents and junior staff.

Also as part of community accountability we provide paediatric service in specialized paediatric clinic in Algerif Sharg Health Centre every Thursday.

Research activities:

The staff of the department is conducting research in different fields in paediatrics and medical education; also they are supervising some of the research projects of 5^th year medical students and the research requirement of the MD paediatrics at Sudan Medical Specialization Board (SMSB).

Other activities:

1. One of our staff is the convener of the Faculty Curriculum Committee.
2. One of our staff is a member in the Task Force of Self-study for accreditation of the faculty of Medicine.

Partnerships & external relations:  

1. The chief co-ordinators for Bahri track (MD, Sudan Medical Specialisation Board, SMSB), since 2015 and up to date , are from our hard working team in Ahmed Gasim Hospital .They co-ordinate the distribution and training of Bahri Track residents and participate in their teaching & training  programmes.
2. All of our staff are regular examiners for Final MBBS exams in most Sudanese Universities & promotion exams for paediatric residents (MD, SMSB).
3. Some members of our staff participate in the Paediatrics MD exams & MRCPCH training.
4. One of our staff is a member in the executive committee of Paediatric council/SMSB
5. Two of our staff were executive members in the Sudanese association of Paediatricians (SAP from 2016- 2018) and actively participated in the organisation of SAP conferences.

At the end, I would like to thank Nile University for its endless support and all our team in the Paediatric Department for working hard for the benefit of our students and for their patience to work under all the surrounding hardships in hospital clinical work.                                                      

Contact Information:

Dr. Ibtisam Faroug                           e- mail address:  Dr.ibtisamfaroug@hotmail.com
Head of the department