Medical School in Ghana: MBChB Duration, Housemanship and Licensing

The 6 Year MBChB

Medical training in Ghana runs as a 6 year MBChB (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) program at the country's medical schools, including the University of Ghana Medical School, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, and the University of Cape Coast. The structure follows the pattern common across West Africa: early years in basic sciences such as anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry, then a shift into full clinical rotations across medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, and psychiatry.

Entry is competitive. Medical schools set their own admission cut-offs on top of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), typically requiring strong grades in core and elective science subjects, and most run additional aptitude tests or interviews for applicants.

Housemanship: Two Years in Teaching Hospitals

Graduating from medical school does not let you practice on your own in Ghana. You first complete housemanship, a period of supervised clinical work in a hospital accredited for training by the Medical and Dental Council (MDC). Since a policy change the MDC made together with the Ministry of Health in October 2004, housemanship runs for 2 years, up from the single year that applied before then.

Housemanship takes place at MDC-accredited hospitals, which include Ghana's major teaching hospitals such as Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, and Tamale Teaching Hospital, alongside other approved regional and district facilities. House officers rotate through core clinical disciplines under the supervision of qualified specialists, building the hands-on competence a medical degree alone does not certify.

Provisional and Permanent Registration With the MDC

When you finish medical school, the MDC gives you provisional registration as a House Officer, sometimes called an intern. This provisional status lets you work in a supervised hospital role during your 2 year housemanship but does not let you practice independently.

Once you complete the full 2 years of housemanship, the MDC moves your registration from provisional to permanent. Permanent registration is what lets you practice as a medical officer, the Ghanaian equivalent of a general practitioner, without a supervising senior doctor signing off on your clinical decisions.

Life After Housemanship

Permanent MDC registration lets you work as a medical officer in public or private practice, or pursue postgraduate specialist training through Ghana's postgraduate medical colleges. Specialization adds several more years of combined clinical work and examinations before you register as a specialist in a specific discipline such as surgery, internal medicine, or paediatrics.

Some medical officers use the years immediately after housemanship to work in district and regional hospitals, particularly in underserved areas, before moving into a specific specialty track or private practice. The MDC remains the regulator at every stage, from initial provisional registration through to specialist registration.