Poznan University of Medical Sciences - History

History

The history of Poznan University of Medical Sciences starts in 1919 when a pharmaceutical department was created at the University of Poznań. A year later (in 1920) the Faculty of Medicine was founded within it (in fact, this faculty existed since 1919 as a part of Poznań Society of Friends of Arts and Sciences). The chair of Dentistry was created in 1929. The first rector of Poznan University was Heliodor Święcicki and first dean of the Faculty of Medicine was Professor Adam Wrzosek.

In the late autumn of 1939, the University of Poznań was closed by German occupation authorities, but many of its professors continued to teach. In 1940 an underground University of Western Poland was formed in Warsaw which comprised the faculties of Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry. In 1941, the Polish School of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh was founded, where the first dean was surgeon Antoni Jurasz from the University of Poznań. In the last months of the war, during the battle of Poznań, preparations for reopening of the University were begun. The university officially reopened in April 1945, before the end of the war.

According to a plan of reform in 1950, the Medical Faculty, with the Department of Dentistry and the Faculty of Pharmacy of University of Poznań, were detached to form an independent school named the University of Medical Sciences. In 1975 a new Faculty of Nursing was founded, and in 1979 a Department of Medical Analytics was opened. In 1984, the Sejm (the Polish national parliament) named the school after Karol Marcinkowski, a distinguished Polish physician and patriot of the first half of the 19th century who had lived in Poznań, and who was a symbol of the highest professional and ethical values in medicine. In 1992 the Faculty of Medicine was divided into Faculty of Medicine I, responsible for the six-year Polish M.D. program, and Faculty of Medicine II, comprising the divisions of Dentistry, Post Graduate Medical Education and Medicine and Dentistry with English as the teaching language.

In 1991, the university introduced programs in English, starting in 1993 with the four-year M.D. program based entirely on the American curriculum and the requirements of the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) system. A six-year M.D. program in English based on the European model followed a year later. Both programs have instituted National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) subject examinations and compulsory completion on USMLE licensing examinations as a requirement for students. Subsequently, PUMS reached the last of its planned English-language based projects with the introduction of a five-year Dentistry program in 2000, and five-year M.Sc. Pharmacy program in 2004, which was replaced by the six-year Pharm. D. program in 2009, and three-year B.Sc. Physiotherapy program in 2009. These programs meet the European requirements.

On 27 February 2007 the Polish name of school was changed from Akademia Medyczna im. Karola Marcinkowskiego w Poznaniu to Uniwersytet Medyczny im. Karola Marcinkowskiego w Poznaniu.

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