Experience of medical schools functioning in the USSR during World War II

Abstract

The pandemic environment, which emerged in 2020, makes it clear that analysis of historical experience of adaptation of expert training system during crises is very urgent. This article discusses the experience of medical schools in the Soviet Union during World War II, adaptation and rearrangement of the system under difficult crisis conditions, their results. New tasks of medical schools are determined, which occurred during the war, and methods of their solution. It is concluded that high shortage of medical doctors occurring with entry of the Soviet Union into the war was overcome by means of preservation (evacuation) and expansion (establishment of new medical schools, departments and courses, reorganization and reprofiling) of the base for medical personnel training, as well as emergency rearrangement of unified national educational plans and programs of medical doctors’ training. The principle of medical education established by the Soviet system of qualified medical personnel training during the war as well as the measures, coordinated by various federal and republican authorities regarding medical school, demonstrated their efficiency.