Samarkand state medical university

Republic 90 years ago, in 1930, already far from us. Over its glorious history, our university has come a long way in becoming one of the leading medical universities not only in Uzbekistan, but also in the entire Central Asian region.   In 1930, by Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of Uzbekistan No. 80 dated May 7, 1930, the State Uzbek Medical Institute (GUZMI) was founded in the city of Samarkand. This was a big event for the population of the Central Asian region, since there was no independent medical higher education institution in this region.   The Samarkand State Medical Institute (since April 2022 - University) received special development after the republic achieved independence. In 1997, the country adopted the “National Personnel Training Program”, and in 1998 the state health care reform program, which resulted in the creation in 1999 of the Faculty of Higher Nursing. In 2001, a department was opened, and since 2005, the Faculty of Medical Pedagogy, and in subsequent years the faculties of Dentistry, Preventive Medicine, Medical Biology, Pharmacy, and since 2020, students have been studying in the new direction “Traditional Medicine”.   In 2020, the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic radically affected all areas of life in almost all countries of the world. There are even suggestions that the changes are so profound that we will have to adapt to them, in the sense of constant compliance with sanitary and epidemiological requirements.   This pandemic has also had a profound impact on education and training. Our University, like all educational institutions of the republic, switched to distance learning from the first days of the pandemic. Since 2013, its own electronic learning platform was created and successfully functioned, and the entire learning process from April until the end of the academic year took place on it.   Due to the specifics of our university and the fact that the main backbone of its human resources consists of healthcare workers, it is natural that from the very beginning of the introduction of quarantine they were completely able to quickly rearrange all work to meet the requirements of distance learning. From the beginning of the 2020-2021 academic year, a completely new electronic platform of the institute began to function for conducting classes online; all main educational materials were translated into electronic format and placed in specially created virtual resource databases, to which all teachers and students have access.   The university has established cooperation with such well-known foreign universities as the Volga Research Medical University, Chuvash National University named after I.N. Ulyanov (RF), Ternopil National Medical University named after Ya.B. Gorbachevsky (Ukraine), Graduate School of Business National Louis University (Poland), Belarusian State Medical University (Republic of Belarus) for undergraduate and graduate training in several specialties under the double degree program. Personnel training is actively underway under the second higher education program together with the Korean side. Also, starting from the 2020-2021 academic year, admission of students from IRP and India has begun, who also intend to obtain higher medical education within the university.   On December 24, 2021, the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan signed two important documents regarding fundamental changes in the higher education system “On additional measures to ensure the academic, organizational and managerial independence of state higher educational institutions” and “On measures to ensure the financial independence of state higher educational institutions.”   The adopted documents opened a new page in the development of the country's universities. In accordance with these documents, universities will have such rights and opportunities as the creation and publication of textbooks and other educational and scientific literature based on their own plan for the higher educational institution and its branches; creation and implementation of internal control mechanisms for the quality of education; implementation of main activities related to education, science, implementation and commercialization of its results, creation of non-state structures, commercial and non-profit organizations; approval of the structure of the institution and determination of staffing levels, regardless of the standards established for higher educational institutions; opening new directions and specialties based on the needs of the labor market, cessation of existing directions and specialties; establishing a procedure for hiring, dismissing and internal rotation of teachers and other employees; admission of foreign citizens on a paid basis and organization of distance learning. The rector especially emphasized that these documents not only give rights and independence, but also place special responsibility for their implementation on the institute’s staff.