Discover MUA
Medical University of the Americas was founded over 20 years ago on a philosophy of education that believes students are best taught medicine in small classes, with one-on-one instruction, and with a commitment to providing an education on par with U.S. and Canadian medical schools.
Today MUA continues to adhere to those founding principles, and has earned a reputation for academic excellence - and graduate success - that has made it a leader among international medical schools.
A few reasons why so many doctors now get their start at MUA:
USMLE Success
Between 2015 and 2020, the first time pass rate averaged 98% - a consistently strong performance.
Integrated, Systems-Based Curriculum
MUA’s academic program is based on the integrated, systems-based approach in use at top U.S. medical schools. Diverse learning opportunities include interactive lectures, small-group work sessions, individual and group presentations, team-based learning, and simulations with standardized patients.
In addition, our program offers learning experiences you won’t find at big international schools. For example, MUA’s first-semester anatomy class includes dissection of cadavers, as at many U.S. medical schools, giving you early hands-on training you won’t get at the bigger schools.
Also, MUA offers a special research module that teaches you critical analytical skills you’ll need throughout your medical career to evaluate and assimilate scientific evidence and continually expand your knowledge.
Class Size and Learning Environment
At MUA, we teach an integrated, systems-based curriculum similar to what you’ll find at leading U.S. medical schools. What truly differentiates MUA is how we teach it.
At the core of MUA’s educational philosophy is the belief that small class sizes, with significant student-teacher interaction, are fundamental to the student experience.
This means that MUA students get the one-to-one attention in the basic sciences and the ongoing support during their clinical rotations they need. This is a critical benefit that larger medical schools simply cannot offer.
MUA has a 3:1 student-to-faculty in the Gateway program and a 7:1 student-to-faculty ratio in the Basic Science program, allowing one-to-one interaction with our professors.
We begin, of course, with a highly experienced and accomplished faculty. All MUA faculty members are seasoned educators and hold an advanced medical degree (MD, MBBS) or doctoral degree in the field they teach.
But we also look for something special when we hire faculty: a demonstrated willingness to welcome and encourage student interaction. In fact, one of the main reasons faculty members tell us they chose MUA over other schools is the opportunity we give them to work closely with their students.
It’s a core belief at MUA that students learn best in small classes, where they have the opportunity to work one-on-one with their professors. You won’t find the anonymous, big lecture hall experience at MUA that’s increasingly becoming the norm at other schools.
Small classes allow for individualized attention throughout the semester, from the important early days when critical concepts are being established, to exam time, when getting just a few more minutes of insight and explanation from an experienced teacher can make all the difference.
You’ll feel that faculty support not only in the classroom, but outside as well. MUA faculty members maintain a flexible open-door policy, and make themselves available to students whenever they’re needed.
Let’s face it: Medical school is challenging enough. Struggling to get sufficient time with your teachers is an extra challenge you don’t need.
What’s more, MUA’s faculty support doesn’t end you when you move on to your clinical rotations in the U.S. and Canada. MUA provides significantly more oversight and guidance during clinicals than other schools. (You can learn more about that on our Clinical Difference page.)
Finally, MUA’s insistence on small classes and supportive faculty has benefits that extend beyond the classroom. It creates a true feeling of community at MUA, a sense that faculty members and fellow students are all working together toward the common goal of helping you become a doctor.
It’s a feeling that’s hard to quantify, but it’s there. Some call it, simply, “the MUA Magic.” Whatever it is, you will feel it from the moment you arrive on campus to the moment you and your classmates graduate as doctors—together.
Our Faculty
All MUA faculty members have an advanced medical or doctoral degree (MD, MBBS, PhD) in their academic field, with postgraduate training in their specialty, as well as demonstrated experience in teaching and research.
They are available on-campus and on the island throughout your studies, who are passionate and care deeply about your future success within the medical industry. The small class sizes allow for more personal and quality teaching from staff to students, providing the support needed to nourish our student's full potential.
The Campus and Caribbean
Located on the beautiful island of Nevis, MUA’s 10-acre campus boasts modern classrooms (including a dedicated on-campus test center), fully equipped laboratories, an extensive library, and an island hospital where students can get clinical experience early in their basic sciences study. Outside the classroom, students enjoy well-appointed dorms and gym facilities, plus all the amenities of Nevis island life, including a weekly fresh produce market and the stunning beaches Nevis is famous for.
It starts with our emphasis on community, and our requirement that all unaccompanied students spend their first semester living in communal dorms. Not only does this simplify life as you make your transition into medical school, but it helps build a sense of camaraderie among your classmates that will last through your years at MUA and beyond.
And then there is the amazing adventure of spending two years of your life on the beautiful and historic island of Nevis—an opportunity to immerse yourself in a new culture and a different way of life that you may never have again.
So yes, you will study hard when you come to MUA. But you will leave not only with an incomparable medical education, but with good friends and a lifetime of memories.
Residency Placements
MUA students obtain residencies in competitive programs across the full range of medical specialties in the U.S. and Canada. Many of MUA’s graduates excel in their residencies, becoming Chief Residents, and many pursue Fellowship opportunities following residency. Since 2001, 88% of MUA graduates seeking residency have secured positions in programs in the U.S. and Canada.
The extensive experience progressively gained through each clinical rotation, both cores and electives, combined with MUA’s oversight, prepares each student for board exams, USMLE Step II CK/CS, and ultimately successful placement into residency and success as a resident and a physician.
Most important, MUA provides students with a comprehensive “Road to Residency” plan, which clearly identifies all steps required to gain a desirable residency position. MUA’s clinical faculty works individually with students to prepare them for each step of the process, helping them train for the Step II exams, identifying potential residency opportunities, and even conducting mock residency interviews.
Our goal is to do everything possible to make sure MUA students get the training, development and support they need to get the residency they want, and ultimately to succeed as a practicing clinician.
Clinical Rotations
MUA, like other international medical schools, offers a full complement of tools to help students organize patient notes, perform self-assessments and manage other elements of their clinical rotations. What sets MUA’s clinical program apart, however, is the personalized, hands-on support provided by MUA’s faculty at every stage of a student’s clinical rotations.
At every step of your clinical rotations, MUA faculty will be in contact with your attending physicians and preceptors to monitor your progress. They’ll personally review your logs and case work and provide regular assessments to make sure you’re progressing as expected.
MUA’s small class size, combined with our emphasis on personalized learning, means you’ll receive a level of support and guidance during your clinical rotations that simply can’t be matched by bigger schools—particularly those with classes three and four times as big as MUA’s.
And if you’re not, the school’s Deans and clinical faculty will work with you to help ensure your success.
Clinical, Professional and Personal
MUA’s objective is not only to make sure each student maximizes his or her clinical experience, but also focuses on career planning and personal growth. Additionally, MUA works with students on the mundane yet vital administrative details that come with clinical rotations, such as housing and scheduling.
The result is that MUA students are able to focus fully on their clinical, professional and personal development during this critical phase of their education, knowing the MUA team is behind them.
That’s a far cry from the experience at other schools, where students are often on their own once they move on from Basic Sciences.
Hand-Picked Programs - Personalized Attention
MUA’s extensive clinical network and curricular design ensure that all students have a robust clinical experience focused on preparing them to practice medicine.
The school’s clinical sites provide students the opportunity to become immersed in the finer points of clinical medicine, and they receive significant hands-on training under the guidance and supervision of the clinical faculty and deans.
Key U.S. Approvals
MUA is one of only a handful of international medical schools with approvals from the key states of New York, California, and Florida. This means that MUA students have access to high-quality clinical rotations in their 3rd and 4th years of medical school that would otherwise be unavailable to them, as well as access to sought-after residencies and licensure in the case of New York and California, respectively. Collectively, these approvals also make MUA graduates who complete the requisite licensing exams eligible to practice in all 50 U.S. states and Canada.
Accreditations and Approval
Medical University of the Americas is a fully accredited medical school.
Medical University of the Americas’ M.D. program is accredited by the Accreditation Commission on Colleges of Medicine (ACCM), the accrediting body for Nevis. The University is also accredited by the St. Kitts and Nevis Accreditation Board.
The United States Department of Education, via the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA), reviews the standards that countries use to accredit medical schools. The NCFMEA has determined that the accreditation standards used by the ACCM to accredit MUA's medical program are comparable to those used by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the accrediting body that accredits M.D.-granting medical programs in the United States.
Medical University of the Americas is one of the select international medical schools approved to participate in U.S. Federal Student Aid programs.
Medical University of the Americas is one of the few international medical schools with approvals in the key states of New York, California and Florida. These states mandate institutional review and approval prior to granting access to clerkship opportunities in their respective states. Medical University of the Americas' students who successfully complete the requisite licensing examinations are eligible to practice medicine in Canada, Puerto Rico and all 50 U.S. states. Specifically, the following bodies have approved, recognized or licensed Medical University of the Americas:
Approved by the New York State Education Department: In addition to clerkship opportunities, New York approval provides access to residencies in the state.
Recognized by the Medical Board of California: Recognition is also necessary for licensure. Additionally, other states follow California’s recognition for the purposes of licensure.
Licensed by the Commission for Independent Education, Florida Department of Education:
Additional information regarding this institution may be obtained by contacting:
Florida Department of Education
Commission for Independent Education
325 West Gaines Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0400
(888) 224-6684 (toll-free)
www.fldoe.org/cie
Welcoming Canadian Students
On the short list of international medical schools Canadian students consider, MUA is a top choice.
Canadians make up a large proportion of each incoming MUA class, and while they’re attracted to MUA for all the same reasons that draw non-Canadian students, these reasons stand out:
- MUA’s incredibly strong track record of securing clinical rotations and residency placements in Canada
- Achievement Scholarship: MUA is pleased to offer to qualifying candidates the Canadian Achievement Scholarship designed to assist in the cost of education and to recognize past achievements.
It also doesn't hurt that MUA Executive Dean Gordon Green is Canadian—with an MD from the University of British Columbia. Or that the extensive prep that MUA provides for USMLE Step 1 also applies very well to the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination (MCCQE).
More about MUA
MUA has built its reputation as a medical school through a careful admissions process that looks at each applicant individually. We want to know as much about you, the person—why you are considering medical school and what you hope to bring to the practice of medicine—as we do about your GPA and performance on standardized tests.
How the MD prepares you for success
"My surgical clinical rotation was excellent. It gave me the ability to assist on operations, not simply view them from the corner of the room."
—Adnan Qureshi, MD
Since its founding in 1998, Medical University of the Americas has enjoyed a steady track record of success, with more than 1,600 graduates, excellent performance on licensing exams and a history of winning top residency positions.