Debre Tabor University

Health and medical education

Debre Tabor University's College of Health Sciences (CHS) is the oldest of its five colleges. It opened in 2013 with three undergraduate programmes: Medicine, Anesthesia and Midwifery. The college now says it runs 23 programmes: ten undergraduate, thirteen postgraduate and three specialty programmes.

A curriculum built around early clinical exposure

The college is known for its "hybrid innovative curriculum", which it adopted from the start. The curriculum is competency (outcome) based and follows the SPICES model: student-centred, problem-based, integrated, community-based and systematic. It mixes public health, biomedical science and clinical work from the first year.

A 2023 study in BMC Medical Education describes how this works for medical students:

• clinical exposure starts in year one;
• students attend two-hour sessions twice a week, under clinician supervision, in the skills lab, the hospital, health centres or households.

The same study also found problems: physicians from the partner hospital had not been oriented to the curriculum; 50–60 students could share four or five clinical teachers in one session; transport was short; and payment disputes had strained relations between the hospital and the university. These findings are from 2023.

Midwifery education followed the same path. In 2013, with support from the Jhpiego-led Human Resources for Health project, Debre Tabor introduced a competency-based midwifery curriculum that other universities later adopted. A 2025 study compared BSc midwives from ten universities delivering care. Graduates of competency-based curricula scored 83.3% on labour and delivery care quality, against 68.2% for graduates of conventional curricula. Debre Tabor also runs the MSc in Clinical Midwifery, a non-physician clinician programme that includes caesarean section.

Programmes

The college publishes a programme table, marked "for this reporting period only". By department, it includes:

• School of Medicine: medicine and anaesthesia, plus postgraduate or specialty training in surgery, internal medicine, gynaecology and obstetrics, anaesthesia and psychiatry;
• Social and Public Health: environmental health at undergraduate level; general public health, environmental health, epidemiology and nutrition at postgraduate level;
• Nursing: comprehensive nursing and pediatric and child health nursing, with postgraduate tracks;
• Midwifery: a BSc, with reproductive health at postgraduate level;
• Medical Laboratory Science and Pharmacy: undergraduate.

Some postgraduate entries, such as gynaecology and obstetrics, are shown in red without explanation, so ask whether each programme is currently admitting. The college lists curricula for its undergraduate medicine, comprehensive nursing, midwifery and anaesthesia programmes. In 2023 it reported 308 academic staff.

The World Directory of Medical Schools lists Debre Tabor's MD programme as six years, with teaching from 2013. An ECFMG note covers graduates from 2019 onwards, making them eligible to apply for ECFMG certification, the route to US licensing exams.

Accreditation and recognition

• ETA medicine accreditation. In March 2025 the university reported a quality-review meeting celebrating the accreditation of its medicine programme. However, Debre Tabor did not appear in the ETA's new online register when we checked, so ask the college for the ETA certificate and its dates.
• COMS-A membership. In July 2026 the college was awarded full membership of the Consortium of Medical Schools–Africa (COMS-A) at the COMS-A and MedEdAfrica conference in Addis Ababa.

Hospitals

Clinical teaching takes place at Debre Tabor Comprehensive Specialized Hospital. In 2019 the newspaper Fortune described it as serving the community since 1930. That year the university and the hospital opened a mental health centre on the medical college premises, which Fortune called the first dedicated mental health care centre in Amhara Region. It opened with 14 beds, with plans for 35. Its upper floors hold classrooms, a skills lab and problem-based learning rooms for medical students. We found no published bed count for the main hospital.

Rankings

Debre Tabor does not appear on EduRank's medicine, nursing, public health, pharmacology or OB-GYN lists for Ethiopia.

The institution

Debre Tabor University was established in 2008 (2001 E.C.). It started with 628 students at Wereta Agricultural College. The president says it now has over 18,000 students on 75 regular and extension programmes. It has six colleges and schools plus the Gafat Technology Institute:

• College of Health Sciences;
• College of Social Sciences and Humanities;
• College of Natural Sciences;
• College of Business and Economics;
• College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences;
• School of Law.

It also runs seven research centres.

The town of Debre Tabor is in the South Gondar Zone of Amhara Region, at the foot of Mount Guna. The university's motto refers to Emperor Tewodros's "quest for knowledge".

Debre Tabor is 29th in Ethiopia on EduRank's overall list and 36th of 51 on uniRank's 2026 table. Regular undergraduate places in public universities are assigned through the Ministry of Education's national placement. The university does not publish fees for self-sponsored study.

Before you apply

• Ask for the ETA accreditation certificate for medicine. The university reported accreditation in 2025, but the programme was not on the ETA's online register when we checked.
• Ask how early clinical exposure works now. The 2023 study reported large groups per clinical teacher and strained hospital relations. Ask about current student-to-supervisor ratios at the hospital.
• Check whether the postgraduate track you want is open. Some entries in the college's programme table are marked in red without explanation.
• MSc Clinical Midwifery applicants: ask about caesarean-section case numbers and supervision, since this programme trains non-physicians to operate.
• Use the main line or registrar for admissions questions. The college has no separate published phone number.