Dubai, United Arab Emirates, December 12, 2022: The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) recently received a high-level delegation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education- International (ACGME-I) in presence of senior officials from the public and private health sector in Dubai.

His Excellency Awadh Seghayer Al Ketbi, Director General of DHA received the delegation headed  by Dr. James Arrighi,  President and CEO of ACGME-I and Lori Lewis, Executive Director at ACGME-I.

Al Ketbi provided an overview of the health services in the Emirate.

He highlighted that the Emirate is always keen to implement the best international standards and practices in the health sector to provide community members and visitors with the highest quality of internationally recognised care in line with the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai and as per the directions of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai.

Al Ketbi said the Emirate pays great emphasis to ensure healthcare facilities in the Emirate are internationally accredited and provide the highest-quality of care in line with the international standards.

The delegation provided an overview of their services during the meeting that was attended by high-level officials from the public and private health sector in Dubai.

The ACGME-I delegation visited a number of private health facilities that are licensed by the DHA to provide training such as Saudi German Hospital, American Hospital and Fakeeh University Hospital.        

Dr. Wadeia Muhammad Sharif, Director of Medical Education and Research Department at DHA highlighted the role of international accreditations to help facilitate the provision of internationally recognised standards of care.

She highlighted that DHA has signed an agreement with  (ACGME-I) and has successfully achieved ACGME-I Institutional accreditation in July this year for the provision of 32 specialised programmes in Dubai for accreditation over the next four years.

Al Sharaf said this will directly contribute to increasing the number of graduate medical education programmes across health specialties and that it is in line with Dubai's aspirations and requirements for its present and future health sector.

Specializations include fields such as  clinical informatics, public health, genomics and aviation medicine, and others, which will directly contribute to the further development of the health sector.

The first phase of the accreditation program currently includes six medical specialties, mainly internal medicine, general surgery, family medicine, emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and diagnostic radiology.

Dr Sharaf highlighted that facilities interested in becoming a training centre to help candidates obtain this accreditation can contact the DHA’s Medical Education Department by emailing trainingfacility@dha.gov.ae