Six years of practice, on country.

A medical degree designed for the country we actually live in.

The Karoo MBChB is a six-year undergraduate programme leading to the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. It is accredited by the Health Professions Council of South Africa and recognised by the World Federation for Medical Education. Approximately 184 students graduate each year.

Years 1 and 2 are foundation years — biomedical sciences, communication and clinical skills, public health, ethics and the social determinants of disease — with weekly community placements from the second semester onward. Years 3 to 5 are integrated clinical years organised around organ systems and life stages, with rotations through every department at Tswelopele and through our eleven outreach clinics. Year 6 is the integrating internship year, with longitudinal placements in district hospitals across the Western, Northern and Eastern Cape.

What is different about studying medicine here

Almost everything we teach is taught next to the patient who needs it. Our PBL groups meet on the wards. Our community-medicine block runs across an entire academic year, not a month. By the end of Year 3, our students have seen more rural medicine than most South African graduates see in their whole degree. The trade-off is that we are smaller than the larger metro schools — intake is capped at 200, and the cohort gets to know each other and the staff well.

Selection

Selection follows the HPCSA-aligned framework: NSC results, the National Benchmark Tests, structured interviews, and a contextual review of rural-origin, first-generation and underrepresented backgrounds. We work hard to keep the cohort representative of the country we serve.