About the Department of Intensive Medicine, Emergency Medicine and Forensic Studies

It teaches courses for two 3-year Bachelor degree programmes (Paramedic; Social Pathology and Logistics of High-Risk Situations) and one 2-year Master's degree (Intensive Care).

Graduates of the Paramedic degree gain a professional qualification enabling them to provide direct emergency care for ill and injured people facing immediate risk of death, prior to hospitalization or during transfers between hospitals. As part of the hospital component of the programme, students are trained to provide urgent care and carry out urgent diagnoses at anesthesiological/resuscitation units and emergency admissions units.

We are the only university department in the Czech Republic to offer a part-time degree in Social Pathology and Logistics of High-Risk Situations. The degree trains qualified workers to conduct effective cooperation with all components of the integrated emergency response system and to raise public awareness of the logistics of handling high-risk situations. Graduates are trained to help secure the scene in high-risk situations following individual and multiple accidents, injuries and other incidents.

In 2011 the Department gained accreditation for its 2-year Master's programme Intensive Care. Graduates of this degree are qualified to participate in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaboration when providing intensive care to patients with reversible failures in their vital functions or at risk of such failure. Graduates are able to pursue careers in a broad range of positions in the field of emergency medicine – including in-patient and perioperative anesthesiological/resuscitation units, at interdisciplinary and discipline-specific intensive care units, at chronic resuscitation/intensive care units, at emergency admissions units in hospitals, and in units providing urgent care as part of disaster medicine.

Since 2008 the Department has been officially accredited to provide a programme of specialist intensive care training courses. The aim of this programme is to train general nurses to provide specialist care in accordance with the latest knowledge and research findings. The Department's staff have many years' experience of teaching intensive care and emergency medicine, and teaching is based on close cooperation with the National Centre for Nursing and Non-Medical Health Care in Brno.

The Department provides theoretical instruction and practical training in first aid and urgent emergency care for students of other degree programmes at the Faculty of Medicine. It also provides first aid training to other faculties as well as the VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava. Additionally, Department staff are involved in the teaching provision for the Faculty's General Medicine degree. Students of the Paramedic degree programme also participate in teaching first aid courses provided by the Department as part of ESF projects, at local primary schools, and at various public events.

The Department also offers a re-qualification course in Health Care for Leisure Events. Graduates gain knowledge of how to deal with various emergency situations and selected health-related problems, injuries etc., and they are able to provide top-quality non-professional first aid; these skills are applicable primarily at summer camps, outdoor events and skiing courses. Graduates of the course can also provide first aid to members of the public at sporting, cultural and social events.

The Department helps to organize and participate in a range of national conferences – including Dostál Days, Ostrava in Emergency Care, the Intensive Care Symposium, and Ostrava Forensic Sciences Days.

For a number of years, the Department has organized the student competition “First Aid Day”. This multi-day event is targeted at students of paramedic training programmes at vocational colleges and universities in the Czech Republic and abroad. The event provides a forum for students from different institutions to meet, share experiences and compare their knowledge and skills – as well as putting these skills into practice during simulations based on real-life emergency responses by paramedic teams. Students take part in various competitive events, simulating the actions of real response teams and applying the necessary skills and standards. For more information on the competition see www.dppostrava.cz

The Department of Intensive Medicine, Emergency Medicine and Forensic Studies is involved in the constantly developing field of emergency medicine and intensive care on both practical and theoretical levels. The clinical platform for the Department's teaching consists of three institutions: the Anesthesiology and Resuscitation Clinic and the Department of Forensic Medicine (both at Ostrava's University Hospital) as well as the Moravian-Silesian Regional Medical Emergency Service. Department staff organize and run seminars and conferences focusing on emergency medicine and intensive care, pre-hospitalization care and initial hospital care, and forensic sciences. They also help to organize and participate in a range of national conferences – including Dostál Days, Ostrava in Emergency Care, the Intensive Care Symposium, and Ostrava Forensic Sciences Days.

Research at the Department focuses on the specialist areas of individual staff members. These areas include quality of life assessment for cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, sepsis prevention at intensive care/resuscitation units, the use of automatic external defibrillation equipment, the development of alternative algotherapy techniques in emergency care, medical emergency services and forensic sciences.


Updated: 18. 05. 2020