History Of The College

University College Dublin dates its origin from the foundation of the Catholic University of Ireland in 1851. The Catholic University of Ireland opened officially in 1854 in the city center where lectures commenced in the Faculties of Theology, Philosophy and Letters. One year later lectures began in the Faculty of Medicine. University College Dublin was granted its Royal Charter in 1908.

In 1934, University College Dublin bought Belfield House and added a group of adjoining properties during the years 1949 to 1958. Expansive growth meant that the school quickly far outgrew its facilities, so in 1964, the University purchased 50 acres of Dublin City. Today, the university campus is spread over an expansive 326 acres that balances architecture with protected greenspaces.

University College Dublin is the largest single university institution in Ireland with a student population of over 17,000 registered undergraduate and postgraduate students.

About The Medical School

Since the establishment of the University, the Faculty of Medicine has been an integral part and mainstay of University College Dublin. Today it has the largest number of places in Medicine in all of Ireland.

The Faculty has approximately 100 full-time academic staff as well as over 400 part-time lecturers and clinical teachers associated with the affiliate teaching hospitals, teaching general practices and faculty departments. The UCD Medical Library is the most extensive in Ireland and features modern information retrieval systems in addition to a comprehensive open-shelf collection of up-to-date journals and textbooks.

The Centre for Medical Education is specifically designed to deal with all aspects of undergraduate education, while the Centre for Healthcare Informatics, equipped with the Computer Aided Learning (CAL) Laboratory, provides over one hundred high-end computers for use of students in the Medical faculty.

Starting in September 2008, UCD has a new graduate entry program available that is four years in length, for students who have an existing undergraduate degree. There is also the five year or six year program for candidates coming from high school and candidates who do not have an undergraduate degree.

In the early years, courses are given in the sciences basic to Medicine, and students are introduced to patients in their own environment through hospital tutorials. In the later years students attend modular courses in clinical subjects including Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Pediatrics and Psychiatry. This involves rotations in the general and specialist hospitals, attachment to a general practice and systematic instruction in the various medical specialties. Clinical teaching is patient-based and is largely carried out through small group sessions at the bedside and in other clinical situations. The emphasis is on inter-patient communication, as well as the development of clinical skills, like examination methodology and problem-solving.

UCD is one of the sister universities in the International Medical College along with many other international institutions, including such North American institutions as Dalhousie Medical School (Nova Scotia, Canada), McGill University (Quebec, Canada), and Thomas Jefferson Medical College (Pennsylvania, USA).

The Teaching Hospitals

UCD's Medical School has a distinct advantage of having two general teaching hospitals. Combined, The Mater Misericordiae and St.Vincent's Hospital have 980 beds. Their specialist units include the National Centres for Breast Cancer Screening, Cardiac Surgery, Liver Transplantation and Spinal Injuries.

Other affiliated general hospitals include Tullamore General Hospital, Waterford General Hospital, St. Colmcille's Hospital Loughlinstown and St. Michael's Hospital Dun Laoghaire.

The specialist teaching hospitals include: The National Maternity Hospital, The Coombe Women's Hospital, Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin (Ireland's major pediatric referral centre) and the Children's University Hospital, Temple Street, all of which contain units of international repute. The National Virus Reference Laboratory is housed in the UCD Department of Medical Microbiology.

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