St. George’s University is a private international university in Grenada, West Indies, offering degrees in medicine, veterinary medicine, public health, the health sciences, nursing, arts and sciences, and business.
St. George's University was established by an act of Grenada's parliament on July 23, 1976. Classes in the School of Medicine began January 17, 1977. In 1993, the University added graduate and undergraduate programs. In 1996, it was granted a charter for the School of Arts and Sciences and a Graduate Studies Program. In 1997, undergraduate courses in international business, life sciences, medical sciences, pre-medical and pre-veterinary medicine were added. The School of Veterinary Medicine was established in 1999, as was the University's Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.
History
A Day in the Life of an SGU Medical Student - My husband spent 2 years studying on the Caribbean island of Grenada. I followed him around one day during his final term to see what a typical day for a ...
St. George's University was founded on July 23, 1976, by an act of Grenada's Parliament. The name is taken from the capital city of Grenada. The original founders were Charles Modica, Louis Modica, Edward McGowan, and Patrick F. Adams. Classes at St. George’s School of Medicine began on January 17, 1977. Almost all of the founding faculty members had been educated either in the United States or Europe.
A Marxist military coup forcibly overturned the democratically elected Gairy government of Grenada in 1979, as the school was in its infancy with a student enrollment of 630. There were nearly 1,000 Americans on the island (including students, faculty, families, etc.). The U.S. government launched Operation Urgent Fury in 1983 as a result. Students were evacuated and classes were moved to Long Island, New York; New Jersey, and Barbados temporarily until 1984.
The reason given by the U.S. Administration of Ronald Reagan to justify the October 1983 invasion of Grenada was to rescue American medical students at St. George’s University from the danger posed to them by the violent coup, as well as to return the country to its democratic status, that had overthrown Grenada’s Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. Bishop, a number of members of his government and several dozen civilians were killed in the coup and the island had been placed under a 24-hour curfew. During the days immediately after the coup, the only independent information coming out of Grenada was from a ham radio operated by a St. George’s student.
In his memoir, President Reagan recounted the return to the U.S. of the St. George’s students as an event that affected him deeply. "I was among many in our country whose eyes got a little misty when I watched their arrival in the United States on television and saw some of them lean down and kiss American soil the moment that they stepped off the airplanes that brought them home."
In response to Hurricane Ivan in 2004, students were again relocated temporarily to campuses in the United States. The school has a comprehensive hurricane plan in place currently.
In August 2014, SGU received a $750 million investment from Baring Private Equity Asia and Altas Partners, a Canadian private equity company whose other major investment is in a salt mining operation. In August 2015, G. Richard Olds, the founder and past dean of UC Riverside School of Medicine, was named as the school's president and CEO.
Campus
St. George's University owns 65 buildings on 42 acres of land, spread out in a peninsula in the southwest corner of Grenada located in the West Indies. A major campus expansion begun in the early 1990s resulted in 52 new buildings. The architecture of the buildings are of Georgian architecture.
University schools
St. George's University School of Medicine offers a Doctor of Medicine degree program that can be earned individually or as part of a dual degree with a Master of Public Health, Master of Business Administration, Master of Science, or Bachelor of Science. School of Veterinary Medicine students may obtain a DVM by itself or with the aforementioned degree programs. In addition, the School of Arts and Sciences offers bachelor's degree programs, and students can earn an MPH, MBA, MSc or PhD through the Graduate Studies Program.
University administration
Chancellors
- Charles R. Modica (1976â€"present)
Presidents
- Charles R. Modica (1976â€"2015)
- G. Richard Olds (2015â€"present)
Vice Chancellors
- Geoffrey H. Bourne, anatomist/primatologist, (1978-1988)
- Keith B. Taylor, gastroenterologist, (1989-1998)
- Peter Bourne, physician, (1999-2003)
Notable speakers
White Coat Ceremony Speakers
School of Medicine
- Ben Carson, neurosurgeon, 2016 US Presidential candidate (August 1996)
- Jonathan Mann, former director of the Global Programme on AIDS (now UNAIDS) (January 1998)
- Donald Hopkins, Director of Health Programs, The Carter Center (August 2000)
- Mark Siegler, director, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics (January 2001)
- Arnold P. Gold, founder and president, Gold Humanism Honor Society (January 2005)
- Ezekiel Emanuel, chair, Department of Clinical Bioethics, Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health (January 2006)
- Sir Kenneth Calman, Chief Medical Officer of Scotland (August 2009)
- Lord Walton of Detchant (August 2010)
- Charles Twort, physician, Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust (January 2013)
Bourne Lecture Speakers
- Anthony S. Fauci, head, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) (1998)
- William Foege, director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2001)
- Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, microbiologist/parasitologist (2002)
- Sir Graeme Robertson Dawson Catto, president, General Medical Council, United Kingdom (2003)
Keith B. Taylor Memorial/WINDREF Lecture Speakers
- Lord Walton of Detchant (2002)
- Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, microbiologist/parasitologist (2004)
- Valentin Fuster, cardiologist and past president, American Heart Association (AHA) (2010)
- Baron Peter Piot, co-discoverer, Ebola virus disease; former director of the Global Programme on AIDS (now UNAIDS) (2012)
- Robert Gallo, director/co-founder, Institute of Human Virology (IHV); co-discoverer of HIV (2013)
See also
- List of medical schools in the Caribbean
- International medical graduate
References and notes
External links
- St. George's University Home
- St. George's University Student Forums