Spartan Health Sciences University is a private, for-profit medical school located in

Vieux Fort Vieux Fort is one of 10 districts of the Caribbean island country of Saint Lucia. Vieux Fort is also the name of the main town in the district. It is the home of the second-largest town in Saint Lucia and is the home of Saint Lucia's internati ...

St. Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerin ...

, in the Caribbean. Spartan confers upon its graduates the

Doctor of Medicine Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...

(MD) degree. Spartan graduates can practice medicine in 46 US states.

History

Spartan was established in Saint Lucia on January 7, 1980, as St. Lucia Health Sciences University. The first campus was located in Castries, the capital city. In November 1983, the school was renamed Spartan Health Sciences University and relocated to Vieux Fort. In 1989, Spartan University started to participate in the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program under

Title IV Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) covers the administration of the United States federal student financial aid programs. American colleges and universities are generally classified with regard to their inclusion under Title IV, ...

. They continued their participation Almost two thirds of their student body received these loans. In 1997, it was listed from the

World Directory of Medical Schools The World Directory of Medical Schools is a public database of institutions that provide medical education. There are over 3,600 medical schools listed in the directory. The directory is published as a collaboration of the World Federation for Med ...

after the St. Lucia government awkwardly knowledge of the existence of the school. Relationships between the government and the school have since improved, and today some of their graduates intern in the St. Lucia Ministry of Health. The school started a nursing program in 2012, which by 2017 had graduated two classes of St. Lucian nurses.

Curriculum

The MD program at Spartan is a 14-trimester course of study that consists of three trimester per calendar year. trimesters 1-5 are completed at the Saint Lucia campus; semesters 6-10 consist of 80 weeks of clinical study that are completed at teaching hospitals approved by the university. Spartan also has a school of nursing. The nursing program was chartered by The Government of St Lucia and is licensed the University. It is also accredited by the Monitoring Committee appointed by the Government of St. Lucia to ensure that standards are comparable to those set by the Liaison Committee of Medical Education as required by the Department of Education in the United States. A school of veterinary medicine was opened on January 14, 2015, and was developed in collaboration with Techmedics Inc.

Accreditation

Spartan Health Sciences University is chartered and licensed in Saint Lucia. The university was listed in the FAIMER International Medical Education Directory (IMED) and in the Avicenna Directory for medicine (both now continued) The school is listed in the

In 2013, Spartan was granted provisional accreditation by the

Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions The Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP) is an accrediting body for the education programmes and schools of medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, nursing and other health profession ...

(CAAMP-HP). The program was placed on probation from 2019-2022 by CAAMP-HP., as they were "unable to grant a further extension of provisional accreditation, having exhausted the maximum period allowed for this category of accreditation".

Licensure outside the United States

In the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, the General Medical Council has listed Spartan as an institution whose graduates (who started their course of study on or before December 31, 2008) are ineligible for licensure.

References

External links