Dean of the Faculty of preventive medicine Avetisov Aram Rubenovich
The Faculty of Preventive Medicine was formed 1991 on the basis the Faculty of Sanitation and Hygiene opened in 1964. The graduates of this faculty specialize as doctors, but can also work as virologists, immunologists, bacteriologists, laboratory workers, research workers and teachers.
The aim of setting up the faculty, which had been the only faculty of the kind in the Republic until 2002, was the necessity to train doctors to deal with prophylaxis and ensure sanitary and epidemic well-being of the Belarusian population; to accomplish sanitary and epidemiological supervision on a national basis in order to prevent diseases caused by unfavourable factors of the environment.
Hygienists and epidemiologists deal with diagnosing, evaluating and prognosing the health condition of the population related to the state of the natural, professional and social environment, the character and status of nutrition of different population categories, and carry on scientific research in the speciality obtained. Doctors with the speciality «Preventive Medicine» mainly work in Hygiene, Epidemiology and Health Centers; Centers for sterilization and disinfection; departments for AIDS prophylaxis; sanitary control centers; research centers; hygiene, epidemiology and microbiology research institutes and laboratories; as epidemiologists at other medical and prophylactic institutions, as well as teachers of higher medical educational institutions and medical schools.
Nowadays there are 768 students on this faculty.
After 6 years of studies the graduates of the faculty work as interns in the leading Hygiene and Epidemiology Centers for a year, and after taking an attestation can work in the following fields: General Hygiene; Children’s and Teenagers’ Hygiene; Nutrition Hygiene; Professional Hygiene; Community Medicine; Radiation Hygiene and Ecology; Epidemiology; Bacteriology; Parasitology; Valeology; Laboratory Investigations; Medical Statistics; work as scientific researchers and teachers of the disciplines mentioned.
The teaching staff take an active part in scientific research work aimed at improving prevention and treatment of wide-spread diseases in the Republic and at training qualified medical personnel.
The prospects of further development and improving the specialists’ training include: updating the laboratory and technical base of the Hygiene departments;
further continuation of using computer technologies in the teaching process; opening and equipping computer rooms at the departments of Radiation Medicine and Ecology;
improving the training of the graduates in laboratory diagnosis of environmental conditions, preventive toxicology, economy and management in health care; introducing specialized training in hospital epidemiology, laboratory diagnosis of environmental conditions and other disciplines for the 5th and 6th year students;
further improvement of the methodical provision for interns;
development of continuing education for basic preparation, postgraduate and refresher courses both at the faculty departments and in the Belarusian Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education.