• Sohail Bajammal, Rania Zaini, Wesam Abuznadah, Mohammad Al-Rukban, Syed Moyn Aly, Abdulaziz Boker, Abdulmohsen Al-Zalabani, Mohammad Al-Omran, Amro Al-Habib, Mona Al-Sheikh, Mohammad Al-Sultan, Nadia Fida, Khalid Alzahrani, Bashir Hamad, Mohammad Al Shehri, Khalid Bin Abdulrahman, Saleh Al-Damegh, Mansour M Al-Nozha, and Tyrone Donnon.
• Medical Education Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Umm Al Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia. sohail@bajammal.com
• BMC Med Educ. 2008 Jan 1;8:53.

BackgroundMedical education in Saudi Arabia is facing multiple challenges, including the rapid increase in the number of medical schools over a short period of time, the influx of foreign medical graduates to work in Saudi Arabia, the award of scholarships to hundreds of students to study medicine in various countries, and the absence of published national guidelines for minimal acceptable competencies of a medical graduate.DiscussionWe are arguing for the need for a Saudi national medical licensing examination that consists of two parts: Part I (Written) which tests the basic science and clinical knowledge and Part II (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) which tests the clinical skills and attitudes. We propose this examination to be mandated as a licensure requirement for practicing medicine in Saudi Arabia.ConclusionThe driving and hindering forces as well as the strengths and weaknesses of implementing the licensing examination are discussed in details in this debate.

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