The original innovative idea was conceived by the first Dean of Faculty of Medicine at Peradeniya Campus, Prof. Senaka Bibile. As an initial step, he formed the Working Group on Medical Education (WGME), comprising a few senior medical faculty dons including Professor Valentine Basnayake as its secretary. According to records this group has met on Tuesday evenings after the ‘Tuesday talks” which was the precursor of Kandy society of Medicine.

Subsequently. Dr. T. Varagunam, at the request of Prof. Bibile took up the challenge to study medical education in the year 1970, under Prof George Miller, who is widely considered the father of medical education. He was entrusted initially to introduce the new Medical Education discipline to the Faculty of Medicine, Peradeniya. The Unit was formally established in 1973 under the directorship of Prof. T. Varugunam, who was a senior academic in the Department of Medicine.

Upon returning from his adventure at the University of Illinois, Chicago, the pioneering, outstanding place for Medical Education, often referred to as the Mecca of Medical Education, with a Master’s Degree, Prof. Varugunam  opened innumerable new vistas to the inquiring minds of the teachers, students, academics of other disciplines, and gave fantastic glimpses of potential new horizons.
Immediately after establishing the Unit, another senior academic from the Department of Anatomy, Dr. Raja Bandaranayake  returned to the Faculty after obtaining a Master’s from University of Southern California, USA.

Two permanent academic staff members were recruited to the MEU in early1973. They were Dr. Palitha Abeykoon and Prof. P. T. Jayawickramarajah - both had to undergo training in Medical Education in Southern California and Chicago Centres in the USA respectively and eventually obtaining Masters Degrees in Medical Education. With this development the MEU was equipped with its own staff  and the discipline of medical education was formally established in Sri Lanka.

According to records, in February 1974 a workshop had been conducted at Peradeniya for academic staff of Faculties of Medicine, Colombo and Peradeniya by Professor George Miller, a Physician (University of Chicago) and Prof. Steve Abrahamson, an Educationist (University of Southern California). Incidentally, these two academics were instrumental in engaging in pioneering work and introducing the discipline of Medical Education in the 1960s to the World.

In addition to trained academic and non academic staff in the MEU, Prof. Varagunam opened the portals of the Unit for other interested staff to join the resource pool and provided them training in different areas of Medical Education leading to forming a spirited group called “Staff Associates” who later became intangible assets to the Medical Education Unit. Regular training workshops were conducted for teachers of health personnel from Medical, Dental, Veterinary and Allied Health Schools. With a view to improve clinical teaching, training was further extended to hospital clinical teachers. In the early days teachers from Faculties of Science and Engineering were invited to undergo training programmes especially designed for them. It is also noted that senior academics from the Engineering Faculty and Department of Education  served as Staff Associates for a long period of time.  MEU  depends heavily on its staff associates in organizing training programs up to now.

The MEU since then has organized a series of training workshops to train teachers of health personnel in Educational Process to include broad topic areas such as learning objectives, teaching methods, curriculum development, assessment of students, evaluation, educational change.  Two week educational technology workshop was popular among trainers in health professions education.  
The activities of the MEU centred around teaching and learning in medical school, clinical teaching, objective assessment of medical students, staff development, active and independent learning of students, educational research and development of learning  resources for students.

Owing to Prof. Varagunam’s pioneering efforts, the WHO recognized the MEU as one Regional Teacher Training Centre for the South East Asia Region and  teachers of health professions education from the regional countries were sent for short term training programmes. This centre at that time was recognized as one of the six Regional Teacher Training Centres (RTTCs) for Health Personnel Education in the World. It is noted that many health professional trainers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar have undergone training at the MEU.

In addition to conducting training programmes for health professions educators, MEU spearheaded  projects such as the Assistant Medical Practitioners’ Training Programme, Compilation of Common Order of Merit for newly passed out graduates of the two existing medical schools, time and motion study of medical internship, Cell Biology course for pre-clinical students. The MEU took up the function of coordinating the  clinical training with a view to streamline the hospital clerkship programmes and to give logistic support to clinical teachers. MEU has initiated an integrated curriculum for assistant medical practitioner students and the training course impressively succeeded by producing competent Medical Assistants.

The third recruit to MEU had been Dr. Gamini Preamadasa in 1984; he has also obtained a Masters in Medical Education from Michigan State University, USA.

The fourth recruit to MEU had been Dr. Nimal D. Kasturiaratchi, in the year 1992, a Medical Anthropologist, who obtained the doctorate from Princeton University, USA.

The fifth permanent recruit was Prof. Kosala N. Marambe, who obtained her Doctorate in Medical Education from University of Maastricht, the Netherlands. She is the present Director of the Unit.

The sixth recruit was Dr. T.M.S.H. Dharmaratne, who obtained MD in Medical Education from the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo and is currently undergoing training in the Leeds institute of Medical education, U.K.