Background

To understand what physiology is we have chosen a fragment of the address to the American Physiological Society in 1975, entitled “Physiology, a Beauty and a Philosophy”, by its President, the eminent Physiologist Dr. Guyton.

“What other person, whether he be a theologian, a jurist, a doctor of medicine, a physicist, or whatever, knows more than you, a physiologist, about life? For physiology is indeed an explanation of life. What other subject matter is more fascinating, more exciting, more beautiful than the subject of life? ”

The Department of Physiology is part of the Medical Faculty at Mbarara University of Science & Technology. The Department has been operating at the University since it was founded in 1989.  The staff works to teach our students the way to find the beauty and fascination regarding Physiology.

The Department’s educational aims include the teaching of core subjects to all regular learning students of the Medical Faculty.
Whereas the  Department consists of 1 Full Professor and 1 Associate Professor, 1 Senior lecturer, 2 Lecturers,  4 technicians and 1 lab assistant trainee, this represents only 40% of the required staff.  At present two technicians are enrolled in Masters Degree Programmes. The Department does not have its own building, therefore the staff are scattered in different departments. Similarly the students are taught from facilities of the different departments.
The Department of Physiology is responsible for teaching undergraduate medical, nursing, medical laboratory, pharmacy, pharmaceutical sciences and physiotherapy students, in Physiology. The Department trains postgraduate students of Physiology and also reviews Physiology for postgraduate students in clinical and other biomedical areas.
About 160 year II and 230 year I undergraduate students registered in the different courses offered in the Faculty of Medicine are assigned to the department every year in order for them to be able to acquire the physiological basis for better and comprehensive understanding of the human body functioning as a whole, which is critical to forward into other subjects of their respective courses and most importantly to offer high quality health care services in Uganda and abroad.
Members of the Department are conducting research either in collaboration with other departments or organizations or attached to their Masters Degree Programmes. The departmental Research Policy is currently under analysis and review to set the new research priorities.