TEACHING OF MEDICAL AND BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS AND MEDICAL INFORMATICS IN EUROPEAN UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

This review article discusses some of the problems associated with teaching fundamental medical disciplines «Medical and Biological Physics» and «Medical Informatics» in 10 universities from 7 European countries. A comparison is made of the organization of teaching these natural disciplines (in particular, the volume of classroom hours) at the Bogomolets National Medical University and other European medical universities for the specialty «Medicine». It was found that in the absolute majority of 8 out of 9 European universities (medical faculties) more classroom hours are allocated for the study of obligatory physical disciplines (for some universities 2–3 times more) than at the Bogomolets National Medical University. The discipline «Medical Informatics and Foundations of Scientific Research» is approved in the working curriculum of the Bogomolets National Medical University for the 2021-2022 academic year not as obligatory, but as a variable discipline which students of the 1st year of study can choose with a prior probability that is equal to 0.5. The importance of teaching the disciplines «Medical and biological physics» and «Medical informatics» as an integral part of the medical industry and medical education is emphasized. It is these directions of science and technology as well as academic disciplines (together with biomedical engineering) that provided a reliable basis to create precision and high-tech medical equipment for diagnostics and treatment, ranging from X-ray and cardiography devices and ending at the moment with the Da Vinci surgical robotic system for minimally invasive interventions, as well as medical imaging system using combined positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging.