The new MD general medicine training program to face challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century

The MD (General Medicine) program is Sri Lanka's first, and currently only, postgraduate program that trains specialists in General ('Internal') Medicine. It had its origin in 1959 as the MD (Ceylon), offered by the Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo and a brainchild of Professor Kumaradasa Rajasuriya. It was the first postgraduate degree in the medical profession in our country, and was initially offered directly following an examination modelled after the MD (London) and the MRCP (London). It soon achieved international recognition . With the establishment in 1980 of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine (PGIM), University of Colombo, it was brought under its purview and became MD (Colombo), organized and delivered by the Board of Study in Medicine (BOS). A formal, in-service training program was added soon after, and this has undergone periodic revision to suit changing times. The Mission Statement of the PGIM pledges to "...plan, implement, monitor and evaluate postgraduate academic programs required to produce specialists of the highest quality, competence and dedication, in orderto provide optimum humane health care to the people of Sri Lanka ... "2.