Medical Doctor (MD) programme

MD Educational Program’s brief description ( the Curriculum )

In general, the aims of the MD Educational Program is preparing medical personnel with a range of competences compatible with the standards of World Federation of Medical Education (WFME) and the competences defined by the Tuning Project.

The MD Program Educational Program continues for 6 years and consists of 360 credits. Based on the European Credit System implementation each 19-week semester of an academic year comprises 30 credits. One credit involves 25 working hours, approximately half of which are intended for contact and other half – for students’ independent work.

The MD Program is widely integrated and is based on the harmonious merging of basic science and clinical disciplines. The integration is achieved through the basic, pre-clinical and clinical disciplines of horizontal, vertical and spiral principles. The program includes stages, cycles and blocks and consists of two main stages: Initial Medical Stage and Clinical Medical Stage. Every succeeding block is built on the previous one and sets more complex learning objectives.

The initial medical stage is a combination of major biomedical sciences with a duration of one semester (first semester).

Initial Medical Stage

The duration of the Initial Stage is 1 semester. The Core Principles of the Biomedical Sciences are pivotal at this stage. The objective of this stage is the introduction of the fundamental principles and the related vocabulary that is applicable to each of the basic sciences, providing the basic knowledge for learning the human organ systems during the following 4 semesters.

The horizontal and vertical integration is achieved by coordinating and integrating basic clinical sciences (Health Promotion and Scientific Research) and Professional Latin. Students will learn basics of health promotion, the methodology of search, critical analysis, literature review, research planning, data collection, statistical analysis and publishing of the results, effectively use the Latin terms in professional context.

Clinical Medical Stage

The duration of the Clinical Medical Stage (330 credits) is 11 semesters, is widely integrated and consists of the Integrated Block I, II, III, IV (II, III, IV, V semesters), Transition Block (VI semester) and Clinical Rotation Cycle I, II, III, IV, V, VI (VII, VIII, IX, X XI, XII semesters).

The Integrated Blocks (II, III, IV, and V semesters) comprise of the organ system modules that allows the integrated teaching of basic molecular, cellular, and organ systems processes in conjunction with the disease processes. Sophisticated scientific information is introduced in a clinical context, illustrating its clinical relevance and enhancing the students’ learning.

Each module begins with a brief review of micro and macro structure and progresses through Human Anatomy, Physiology, Histology, Cytology, Embryology and Biochemistry of the subject organ system. The horizontal and vertical integration is achieved by coordinating and integrating between basic and clinical sciences courses.

Integrated Organ Systems courses are vertically linked to the principles of Patient Care, clinical and communication skills, core values of medicine, basics of Pathology and Immunology, Microbiology, Virology, Parasitology, research methods and are accompanied by teaching basic principles of Health Care Management, Medical Psychology, Preventive Medicine, fundamentals of Pharmacology, creating 5 modules for learning the organ systems.

The learning methodologies used in organ system modules include lectures, group-work, discussions, demonstrations and self – study, PBL sessions.

In order to refine practical medical skills and ensure adequate learning of the methods of timely diagnosis and proper treatment in the given clinical cases, clinical skills teaching is delivered stepwise way. Elaboration of Students’ clinical skills is performed on the basis of five academic course (total 14 credits).

The training of student to research skills is performed based on 3 academic courses of the principles of scientific research, which in total equals to 10 credits, of them 7 credits are devoted to theoretical aspects and the remaining 3 credits to research work.