Letter from the Executive Dean

Dear Future Colleagues,
I am honored and pleased to welcome you as you begin the journey of learning, discovery, challenges, and reward that is a career in medicine. The faculty in Belize and the clinical instructors at our affiliated teaching hospitals in the United States and United Kingdom are looking forward to teaching you and learning from you as you become the next generation of clinicians and researchers.

The American Global University School of Medicine is a new and innovative institution, dedicated to the highest standards of preclinical education and the broadest possible range of experience of clinical medicine. We are dedicated to the process and excited by the experience of teaching and learning medicine, which is why we are part of a medical school rather than in private practice or at a research institute.

We will also strive to keep in sight the human values, ethical principles and spiritual dimension without which medicine cannot be properly practiced. These are the most important attributes of any physician, and we have been at pains to select applicants who already possess them. The scientific portion of the curriculum will periodically emphasize them, and we have made sure that they are repeatedly addressed in the outpatient and hospital teaching programs in which you will gain clinical experience.

Among my most vivid recollections are the trip to Durham, North Carolina some 35 years ago, and the first months of medical school at Duke University. I hope that the months to come in Belmopan will become similarly vivid memories for all of you in the years to come. I also had the experience a year or so ago of at last throwing away some old notebooks from the Duke of 1974, which had long lain unopened in the basement. The science in them was largely outdated, but I remember reflecting as I carted the notebooks out to the curb that I still retained the most important principles of medicine that I had been taught in those years, and that they were still relevant. I hope, too, that all of you one day have a similar experience.

With Warmest Regards,

Miles E. Drake, Jr., MD.
Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry and Physiology
Executive Dean