283 future doctors from 29 different countries around the world will don caps and gowns to graduate from the RCSI School of Medicine today.

Medical degrees will be presented to graduands at the annual conferring ceremony which takes place in The Convention Centre Dublin (CCD).

RCSI’s School of Medicine Conferring Ceremony sees the largest number of doctors in Ireland graduate each year and today’s event is a celebration for students and their families, some of whom have travelled from all over the world to attend the ceremony.

Professor Cathal Kelly, Chief Executive/Registrar, RCSI, congratulated all those graduating on their success: "Today’s ceremony is a wonderful celebration for our graduates and a culmination of their years of hard work and dedication on the path to qualify with a degree in medicine. These future doctors have benefited from teaching in an environment where excellence in patient centred care is the priority from day one, equipping our graduates with all the necessary knowledge and skills required to be rounded and clinically distinguished doctors, in whatever speciality career path they choose. We look forward to watching our graduates progress on the next phase of their journey as healthcare leaders of the future."

An RCSI Honorary Doctorate Degree will be awarded to RCSI alumna Professor Barbara Murphy (Medicine, Class of 1989), a world-renowned transplant nephrologist and immunology researcher whose work focuses on the use of genomics and genetics to predict and diagnose outcomes following kidney transplantation. Prof. Murphy will address the School of Medicine graduating Class of 2018 as part of the ceremony.

Prof. Murphy is the Chair of the Samuel Bronfman Department of Medicine, the Murray M. Rosenberg Professor of Medicine, and the Dean of Clinical Integration and Population Management at the Icahn School of Medicine at the Mount Sinai Health System. When she was named chair of the Samuel F. Bronfman Department of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2012, she became the first female chair of medicine of an academic medical centre in New York and the second female chair of a top 20 medical school in the U.S.

The 283 candidates graduating today will be conferred with Honours Degrees of Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery, Bachelor of Obstetrics MB, BCh, BAO (NUI, RCSI), LRCP & SI.

RCSI is ranked among the top 250 (top 2%) of universities worldwide in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (2018) and its research is ranked first in Ireland for citations. It is an international not-for-profit health sciences institution, with its headquarters in Dublin, focused on education and research to drive improvements in human health worldwide. RCSI is a signatory of the Athena SWAN Charter.

Since 2016, RCSI has granted the same degree to graduates from the College’s campuses in three countries. This common medical degree demonstrates RCSI’s commitment to excellence in healthcare education worldwide, connecting the campuses in Ireland, Bahrain and Malaysia and the RCSI network of alumni across the globe.