Sandra Danso-Bamfo (24) is a fifth year medical student from Accra, Ghana.

Do you live with your parents or on your own?

I live in the student’s hostel that is 5 minutes away from my parents place since they work with the hospital. The majority of Ghanaian students live in the hostel, which has 2 beds per room. Most foreign students live in rented houses close to the hospital. Boarding culture is very strong in Ghana so children normally go to boarding school from the secondary level and never look back, some even board during their primary years.

How’s university life in Accra?

University life in the University of Ghana, (Legon as its popularly known) is one of the most exciting I know of, it’s its own subculture, with fashion and music trends starting and stopping there. The medical campus is a starkly different, as medical students, I hate to say are generally very boring. Majority of the male students are involved in some form of sporting activity. Football as you know is serious business in Ghana and even in our small medical school we have football clubs, “owned” by and managed by students and our very own football league. Almost every student can be grouped into either the Christian Medical Fellowship (CMF) or the Islamic Medical Society, whether they are active in their respective societies or not. The societies meet at least once a week and many halls and corridors are converted into places of worship on Sundays and Fridays or during prayer times. Many medical students date within the medical school but regardless of these “medical relationships” the number of medical marriages roughly equals the number of non medical marriages currently.

How many hours a week do you spend on your study?

That’s an interesting concept, since from my calculations you need more than 24 hours in a day to study adequately. The default state of a medical student is studying, it might be better to ask how many hours does one spend not studying. Personally, I’ve always been involved in one extracurricular project or the other, so I usually spend the normal amount of time in school, which differs from year to year and about 2 hours after school.

Is it financially possible for everyone to study medicine in Ghana?

The government does offer scholarships to Ghanaian students in government tertiary institutions by default, full-fee paying Ghanaian students pay about 10 times the subsidized price and foreign students pay about 5 times the full fee. The main limiting factor to obtaining entry is the grueling selection process. Out of my University of Ghana B.Sc class of over 600 students, most of who are assumed to be medical school hopefuls, a little over 100 made it to the University of Ghana Medical School.

What do you think is the best part of the medical education in Ghana?

The best part is the opportunity of patient student contact. Students are allowed to do more than in Europe and the North America especially since there are fewer legal entanglements involving medical practice and the culture and attitude towards doctors is one of respect and admiration.

If you can change one thing of the medical education in Ghana, what would that be?

I love to see improvement in government policy towards education, public health and health care delivery. A shift in the educational methods from classical to modern methods of learning and teaching such as PBL (Problem Based Learning) and the incorporation of EBM (Evidence based medicine).

You are involved in IFMSA and especially during international meetings you meet a lot of different medical students from all over the world. What do you think that is the biggest difference in study medicine in The Netherlands and Ghana?

I have, unfortunately, not had the opportunity to go into depth about the details of medical education in the Netherlands but as I said earlier, the older medical schools use the classical method of medical teaching whereas the newer ones use PBL, so in this vein, the teaching methods would differ from school to school. Considering the population of both countries and the prevalent socio-economic status of each, I believe the medical schools in the Netherlands are better equipped with both staff and facilities and materials, including teaching aids such as simulation centers. As a side note, I believe as with most of Europe, the study of medicine is skewed in favour of females unlike in Ghana where males make up about 60-70% majority.

Describe your life in 2020….

Wow! I hope to have completed the perfect hybrid specialization, be successfully working internationally; clinically and publicly in the field of reproductive health and female empowerment, and happily married with children if we decide to have them.