Incoming Med 1 Students – Spring 2024 Term

Yes. Students who apply and are accepted to AUA’s upcoming Spring 2024 class will join their fellow students, as well as AUA faculty and staff, in person on our Preclinical Sciences campus in Antigua.

MCAT is required for US students applying to the upcoming Spring 2024 and Fall 2024 terms. If you have taken the MCAT, please submit your MCAT results with your application.

Applicants with a high score on the MCAT exam may qualify for academic scholarships at AUA.

GHT students will begin the academic program in person and on campus as originally scheduled.

Effective as of January 15, 2023, while AUA strongly recommends that students be fully vaccinated against the COVID -19 virus, including all CDC recommended boosters, the University will not require students to be so vaccinated. However, because, at present, most of the University’s clinical affiliated teaching hospitals require that students be fully vaccinated before they will be permitted to engage in training at those affiliated hospitals, unvaccinated students will be limited in where they will be able to complete their clinical clerkship training and may find it difficult, more costly and/or more inconvenient, if not impossible, to complete the requirements for graduation, timely or at all. As part of its curricular requirements, the University requires its preclinical students to participate in clinical training at St. John’s Hospital, the only hospital in Antigua. Presently, St. John’s Medical Center requires that students be fully vaccinated before they are permitted to train there. AUA will endeavor to provide training as comparable as is reasonable in lieu of the training requirement at St. Johns.

In general, people are considered fully vaccinated:

• 2 weeks after their second dose in a 2-dose series
• 2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine

If you don’t meet these requirements, regardless of your age, you are not considered fully vaccinated. For more information, please view the CDC’s guidelines here.

Please refer to the latest travel advisory from Antigua & Barbuda here.

Please view the latest travel advisory from Antigua and Barbuda for the most up-to-date travel guidelines.

If you have tested negative for COVID-19 per the official guidelines of Antigua and Barbuda and can present documentation showing that you are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, you will not have to quarantine upon entering the country.

Arriving passengers who test positive for COVID-19 will be isolated per guidelines from the Ministry of Health Officials. Read Antigua & Barbuda’s official travel advisory for more information.

If you start displaying symptoms, call the 24/7 COVID-19 hotline at Mount St. John’s Medical Centre at 268-462-6843. Medical staff answer calls at any time and can direct you to the appropriate resources. You can also contact the AUA Health Clinic via email at [email protected] for guidance.

If we conduct a confirmatory test for COVID that is positive, we will arrange for you to get a PCR test by the Health Ministry. You will need to remain in self-quarantine until the results are back. If you are positive, we have special housing arranged for you to quarantine in and will assist with getting supplies and necessary items. Once you are symptom-free and have completed your quarantine, the Health Ministry currently requires a repeat negative PCR test prior to returning to your apartment/campus.

We will get in touch with anyone you have had contact with in the 48 hours preceding the test and will follow the below CDC protocol.

COVID-19 Specific Practices 

Contact tracing will be conducted for close contacts (any individual within 6 feet of an infected person for a total of 15 minutes or more) of laboratory-confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients.

Remote communications for the purposes of case investigation and contact tracing should be prioritized; in-person communication may be considered only after remote options have been exhausted.

Testing is recommended for all close contacts of confirmed or probable COVID-19 patients. Those contacts who test positive (symptomatic or asymptomatic) should be managed as a confirmed COVID-19 case.

Asymptomatic contacts testing negative should self-quarantine for 14 days from their last exposure (i.e., close encounter with confirmed or probable COVID-19 case) Asymptomatic close contacts who are not tested should self-quarantine and be monitored for 14 days after their last exposure, with linkage to clinical care for those who develop symptoms

As you know, most people have minimal symptoms. We have all recommended OTC meds for symptoms associated with Covid and we will be in daily contact with you to see how you are feeling. Should you develop symptoms requiring more aggressive treatment, Mount St John has over 40 ventilators, IV steroids and the physicians there have successfully treated many Covid patients. We can also arrange to have you air-evacuated to the US, however that is contingent on there being a hospital in the US with open ICU beds that can accept new patients.

Effective as of January 15, 2023, while AUA strongly recommends that students be fully vaccinated against the COVID -19 virus, including all CDC recommended boosters, the University will not require students to be so vaccinated. However, because, at present, most of the University’s clinical affiliated teaching hospitals require that students be fully vaccinated before they will be permitted to engage in training at those affiliated hospitals, unvaccinated students will be limited in where they will be able to complete their clinical clerkship training and may find it difficult, more costly and/or more inconvenient, if not impossible, to complete the requirements for graduation, timely or at all. As part of its curricular requirements, the University requires its preclinical students to participate in clinical training at St. John’s Hospital, the only hospital in Antigua. Presently, St. John’s Medical Center requires that students be fully vaccinated before they are permitted to train there. AUA will endeavor to provide training as comparable as is reasonable in lieu of the training requirement at St. Johns.

COVID-19 tests will be administered periodically.

Yes, your COVID-19 testing is covered by the school insurance.