University Medical School in Tromsø, Norway

When the University of Tromsø in northern Norway was founded in 1968, the region suffered from at serious lack of physicians and the health system was not efficient. It was believed that the establishment of a medical school would improve this situation. Half of the places would be reserved for students from northern Norway, and the curriculum would be designed particularly to adapt to the needs of society. The curriculum today aims at obtaining early involvement with patients by using the integrated model for teaching, which means no separation between preclinical and clinical periods and close patient contact throughout the whole curriculum. There is full integration between basic sciences and clinical medicine according to the organ-system model. Emphasis is put on teaching the students a scientific approach involving elective studies and a thesis based on independent study. The expectations of the planners of the medical school have, in the main, been fulfilled. Of the physicians now practising in northern Norway, the proportion who received their education in Tromsø exceeds that of those educated at the other Norwegian medical schools. In addition, there are no serious vacancies in the primary health care service in the region.