Challenging the ordinary: A healthcare education partnership between universities in the UK and Egypt

Abstract

Introduction: In 2016, a new university opened in Egypt that sought to ‘challenge the ordinary’ in a country with a long and rich heritage of knowledge production. Newgiza University (NGU), located adjacent to the ancient pyramids of Giza outside Cairo, launched with a foundational focus on health sciences, through undergraduate courses in medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy. Each programme was co-developed through an academic collaboration with University College London (UCL), a high-ranking, research-intensive, UK university. Methods: As the collaboration passes a key juncture of graduating the first cohorts of doctors, dentists, and pharmacists from these courses who embark on their professional careers, we examine and reflect on the journey to date. In particular, this article reviews the growing academic literature about international partnerships in medical education, describes how curricula, assessments, and management structures in the three NGU healthcare courses were adapted and finessed to fit the Egyptian context, and shares the lessons learnt by the academic leadership teams responsible for this challenging but stimulating collaboration project. Results: The collaboration between NGU and UCL is an example of an international education partnership approach that seems to be growing in popularity globally. The overriding importance of building trust and respect between partners was clear in this collaboration, as was the need for clear communication channels to guide the necessarily complex decision-making that underpinned it. Conclusion: Given inevitable power imbalances in such collaborations, critical examinations of their impacts on organisations, staff, and students are an important research priority in the future.