During the official opening of the 19th international scientific conference of the College of Medicine, University of Baghdad, His Excellency, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr.  Naeem Abd Yaser Al-Aboudi said that this conference represents an appropriate opportunity to provide an appropriate academic climate for the required review of the environment of this type of education and the challenges that accompany it and to measure the index of performance in general.

Dr. Al-Aboudi confirmed that dealing with the index of increasing the number of students in medical colleges will not be at the expense of absorptive capacity and quality requirements.

His Excellency urged to pay more attention to the quality of the inputs of the educational process, link its specialties and outputs with the community's need for specialized services and participate in solving its changing problems that require educational institutions to take into account flexibility and innovation and keep pace with innovations in the field of knowledge.

Dr. Al-Aboudi added that the medical colleges, which have reached thirty-one colleges, vary in their educational systems between the integrative system, courses, semester and annual, and meet in the mission and goal set by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in reaching the highest level of performance and interaction that is based on the tripartite student, curriculum and professor until the equation of quality and accreditation to be achieved.

His Excellency that medical colleges in Iraq have spared no effort to reach the furthest point in their absorptive capacity to contain inputs with a quantitative impact, so that they currently host more than thirty-seven thousand students in all stages and graduate more than two thousand and eight hundred doctors annually.

Dr. Al-Aboudi called for the studied expansion of these colleges horizontally and vertically, conditional on the availability of educational hospitals and specialized faculty members.

His Excellency highlighted that the quality of the inputs of the educational process and the education process itself and its outputs occupies priority and forefront in the agenda of Higher Education and Scientific Research especially with regard to medical education, which appears to be at a positive level of performance after many medical colleges in universities obtained programmatic accreditation from the National Council for Accreditation of Medical Colleges, which represents a clear and tangible result of focusing on correct work in the field of quality of educational programs.

Dr. Al-Aboudi inaugurated Ibn Al-Haytham Hall in the College of Medicine and art and medical exhibitions.

For his part, on behalf of the President of the Republic, Dr. Abd al-Latif Jamal Rashid, Dr. Kamel Karim said that the sobriety and nobility of the College of Medicine at the University of Baghdad is sufficient to enrich the scientific conference with excellence, since its honorable scientific history is an essential part of the scientific and academic legacy.

For his part, the representative of the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mr. Muhammad Shia'a Al-Sudani, Dr. Salih Samad reviewed that the College of Medicine at the University of Baghdad represents a scientific edifice that all Iraqis are proud of because of its medical outputs of great impact on the provision of medical services.

For his part, the President of the University of Baghdad, Dr. Mounir Al-Saadi said that the conference aims at opening up to international institutions in order to build distinguished scientific partnerships that contribute to the advancement of medical education, as well as stressing at the same time that the “Study in Iraq” initiative launched by His Excellency, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr.  Naeem Abd Yaser Al-Aboudi witnessed the registration of more than 600 students from 12 countries to study in the colleges of the University of Baghdad alone.

For his part, the representative of the World Health Organization in Iraq, Dr. Ahmed Zueitin expressed the organization's keenness on cooperating with the College of Medicine at the University of Baghdad in order to achieve an integrated partnership to advance medical sciences and ensure comprehensive health coverage in Iraq.

It is worth mentioning that the official opening of the conference witnessed delivering speeches by the representative of the British Royal College, Dr. Abdul-Majid Al-Salmasi, the representative of Iraqi doctors in the United Kingdom and the European Union, Dr. Muhammad Al-Sudani, the representative of Arab doctors, Dr. Mervat Abu Al-Maati and the Dean of the College of Medicine at the University of Baghdad, Dr. Amin Al-Alwani and witnessing a number of activities, including honoring personalities and showing a documentary film on the history of the College of Medicine in Iraq and the stages of its establishment and development through its various stages  as well as the conference was attended by a number of Iraqi Parliament Members, University Presidents and Iraqi and foreign personalities.