Eng
Eng
Odessa National Medical University has had history since 1900. It experienced two revolutions, two world wars, occupation and the liberation of Odessa from the Nazi. After Ukraine became independent – the crisis of the 1990s, two more revolutions, Russian aggression in the south-east of our country. The university has learned to survive, work in any conditions, live without money. But none of these difficult historical periods has ever been on the brink of destruction. Unfortunately, this has happened nowadays. The Cabinet of Ministers has issued two decrees on the reorganization of ONMedU at the behest of the Ministry of Health. According to the plan of the officials, the university, which has educated several generations of brilliant doctors, should cease to exist.
There are thousands of lives associated with Odessa Medical University. Professors, lecturers, students who, having received diplomas, devoted themselves to teaching the following generations. The undeniable fact is that ONMedU is one of the strongest higher medical educational institutions in the Eastern Europe. Colossal scientific potential, dozens of scientific schools, about 100 thousand graduates. It was one of the first in the country to become a member of the International and European Association of Universities. According to the innovations and technological equipment, it competes with the best medical schools of the planet. Odessa Medical University, as we know it today, was created due to efforts of many people. The key person is Valerii Mykolaiovych Zaporozhan, Academician of NAMS, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor and Honored Inventor of Ukraine. In 1971 he graduated from the medical faculty of Odessa Medical University and devoted all of himself to the alma mater: he walked the way from an assistant of the department to the position of the rector, which he occupied for more than 20 years.
With the efforts of his team, ONMedU was the first in Ukraine to set up a network of university clinics, a scientific park, 27 regional medical diagnostic centers, an innovative center for practicing doctors’ training, and an online library of online educational materials from the leading medical universities of the world. For almost 120 years, ONMedU has become not only a center for medical personnel training in the south of Ukraine, but also an integral part of the international educational ecosystem. Only in recent years 46 agreements on cooperation with leading scientific and medical centers of the world have been concluded. Owing to each document – dozens of internships, joint projects, sharing experiences, the opportunity to take over and implement medical technologies in our country today, not tomorrow.
Valerii Mykolaiovych has always believed that the main task is to train internationally-qualified doctors in the USA, Europe and Asia. The market for medical technology is globalized, like no other. Without international cooperation, without communication with colleagues from different parts of the world, it is impossible to develop medicine and health care. Therefore, in 1994, the first thing he made as rector – traveled to the top ten medical universities in Western Europe and the world. He is an honorary doctor of more than 17 foreign universities. This international recognition has helped the rector to study the economics of higher education, management of the scientific and educational process at Oxford, George Washington University, Stanford. The experience of Israeli colleagues has shown how to combine science to practice. Since then, ONMedU has evolved with a view to world standards, including three equivalent pillars:
1) Good theoretical basis. In Odessa students are taught by the best of the best: more than 140 professors and doctors of science. For independent work there is a unique electronic library with abstracts of lectures, methodological materials and textbooks of leading universities.
2) Simulation training. Valerii Mykolaiovych insisted: before stepping closer to the patient, the student is obligated to hone his practical skills and bring them to automatism. At his initiative, five years ago, the “robotics” of the university began. Simulations classes were created at all departments – surgery, pediatrics, therapy. According to the model of the University of Chicago, these classes are equipped with works that completely mimic the true patient and without the participation of the teacher evaluate the quality of the student’s manipulation themselves.
3) Clinical training. Only after impeccable work with simulators students under close attention of specialists are admitted to true patients. For this purpose, upon an initiative of Valerii Mykolaiovych, Odessa Medical University was the first in Ukraine to return its clinics. Today, all students are practicing and thousands of Ukrainians are being treated in them.
The foundation of all these transformations began in the early 90’s, during the period of devastation and total poverty, when social funding of the budget was barely enough to pay salaries. The rector then had to find an answer to the difficult question: where to get the money for the reform? In a matter of months Odessa Medical University was the first in Ukraine to start teaching in English. Foreign students immediately started coming to us.
For Valerii Mykolaiovych himself it came with a high price tag: for five years, everyone, from the minister and ending with his colleagues, called him an adventurist, said that it was profanation and that there would be no personnel at the university. What now? All lecturers at ONMedU speak English. We are teaching students from 53 countries. Odessa Medical University has been and remains a pioneer in many innovations. Valerii Zaporozhan has not been working as a rector for several months, but the projects he began are still being implemented. For example, the molecular genetic laboratory, which is unique in Ukraine, began to work literally days ago. We are on the verge of creating the first of the workforce schools in Eastern Europe, not only in Ukraine. This is a unique technology and the future of medicine.
It is a well-known fact: without qualitative training of physicians, equipment has no significance. Destroying a university means depriving the industry of staff, practicing doctors – the ability to develop their competencies, patients – a chance to recover. Our doctors, including graduates of Odessa Medical University, are valued all over the world. Except, perhaps, in Ukraine itself. Unfortunately, criticizing us has become a tradition. Today, we hear that Ukrainian medicine is bad, that the authorities that teach and heal must be eliminated, that students must study abroad and return to work in Ukraine even coming from the Minister of Health. Does anyone believe that a yesterday’s student, figuratively speaking of Yale University, will operate in a regional Ukrainian clinic with no opportunity to be realized, or even lacking banal instruments?
Believe me, the worst thing for a doctor, when he knows what to do, can do it, but he has nothing to do with. With the technical equipment of our clinics, many doctors consider it immoral to work, they leave them. Valerii Mykolaiovych once told a story of one of the meetings of the European Rectors’ Club, in which his colleague from the Czech Republic thanked Ukraine for its universities. He said: “If there were no immigrants from Ukraine, there would be nobody to give medical care to the Czechs.” This is called a disaster.
It is not the training of personnel that is the problem of the Ukrainian medicine. The system of medical education is the last sphere where officials should practice in reforms. We will prepare a doctor for you, for your part, give him the opportunity to work in Ukraine! Do not hang the blame on someone else, do not destroy medical universities. Without them, tens of millions of Ukrainians can forget what is high-quality medical care.
Author: Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Urology and Nephrology of Odessa National Medical University, Chairman of the Conference of the Labor collective of ONMedu, Fedir Kostiev
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