Christian Medical College

The Christian Medical College has come to occupy a prominent place among the medical institutions in India. CMC is unique in being both, a centre attending to the needs of the disadvantaged, and a leading referral tertiary care hospital. CMC fosters wholeness of healing and integrates physical and spiritual care. The combination of technical competence and the urge to be relevant to the needs of people and their environment influence the research and development activities. CMC’s principal achievement is creation of hundreds of health care personnel who, having studied and worked here, have imbibed the spirit of compassionate care and a self-giving culture. CMC's present team of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, engineers, chaplains and others are engaged in making health care relevant to the changing times. Today, CMC’s graduates form a large number of trained health care personnel for the Christian medical network in India. CMC is a healing arm of the church in India.
The College is the parent organisation in the legal and organisational sense. The CMC Hospital and all its related clinical and health care facilities are teaching facilities of the College. The College is owned and administered by the Christian Medical College Vellore Association which is a Society registered under the Societies Registration Act of India. The Association is made up of 54 churches and other Christian organisations engaged in medical/health care activities. The governance is vested in the Christian Medical College Council which is made up of all the members of the Association plus a number of other organisations in India and abroad with similar interests.
In 1918 Dr.Ida Scudder established a Medical School for Women, which was upgraded to a College in 1942 and became coeducational in 1947. Each year 60 students, of which at least 25 are women, are admitted for the undergraduate medical course (M.B.B.S. of The Tamil Nadu Dr.M.G.R.Medical University). The churches and Christian organisations which are members of the Christian Medical College Vellore Association (see above) are entitled to accredit Christians among the applicants as being eligible to the proportion of places (currently 50 out of 60) reserved for the Christian "minority" as provided in the Constitution of India.
The student body is a wholesome mix of various regions, religions and communities of India and other Asian countries. The tution fees in the college are exceptionally low so as to ensure that finances are not a constraint to the coveted education in this institution. In addition, scholarships are available to students who need such assistance. Students and faculty live together like a family in a residential campus. A major emphasis in the curriculum is training in Community Medicine, a part of which includes living in a village for several weeks and participating in activities designed to provide practical knowledge and experience related to the life and health of rural people. Immediately after graduation, all the medical graduates of CMC are required to serve for at least two years in health care facilities accredited by the institution to be meeting social needs. Trainees who join for postgraduate courses are fulltime members of the staff, actively working in the wards and laboratories while learning under the guidance of senior colleagues.