Our story
The roots of the Faculty of Medicine can be traced back to 1993, when the University of Ostrava opened a new faculty training graduates to work in health care and social care professions – the Medical-Social Faculty.
Teaching at the Medical-Social Faculty began in the autumn of 1993, with three Bachelor-level degree programmes: rehabilitation and physiotherapy; social-medical and geriatric care, and laboratory work in health care. In 1995 the Faculty launched its first Master’s level degree – in social work for the health care sector. The Faculty became known as an excellent centre of education and training for future health care and social care professionals, keeping step with the latest international developments; our students also had the opportunity to study in other European countries as part of international exchange programmes.
Ostrava’s Medical-Social Faculty came into existence at the same time as several other similar faculties in the Czech Republic and Slovakia; like its counterparts, it was rooted in close cooperation between both health care disciplines and social care disciplines. In the following years, medical faculties began to launch their own degree programmes in non-medical health care disciplines. Eventually it became clear that the best way forward was for medical disciplines and non-medical health care disciplines to be taught and researched at separate, dedicated institutions.
In April 2008 the University of Ostrava’s Academic Senate approved the establishment of a new faculty – the Faculty of Social Studies – based on the former Department of Social Work at the Medical-Social Faculty. At the beginning of the academic year 2008/2009 the Medical-Social Faculty (which now focused entirely on health care disciplines) was renamed the Faculty of Health Care Studies. It was this Faculty that would eventually go on to form the basis for today’s Faculty of Medicine. It offered degrees in a complete range of non-medical health care disciplines – from professions involving direct patient contact to more technical professions working with laboratory equipment and other technologies.
Out of all the degree subjects taught at the Faculty today, the degrees ‘Medical Laboratory Assistant’ and ‘Physiotherapy’ have the longest tradition. Over the years the Faculty has adjusted and greatly expanded its range of degrees available to applicants. In 2004 new legislation brought changes in education and training for non-medical health care professions, and the Faculty began to focus particularly on these fields of study. The Bachelor degree programmes ‘Health Care Management’ and ‘Social-Medical and Geriatric Care’ were phased out, because these professions were no longer defined in the legislative framework. Instead, the Faculty launched a number of Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes training future health care professionals. The Faculty grew to become one of the Czech Republic’s largest higher education providers of its type, offering an unrivalled range of degree subjects.
A new era in the Faculty’s history began in April 2010, when the degree programme ‘General Medicine’ received its official accreditation. Reflecting this new direction, the Faculty changed its name, becoming the Faculty of Medicine. The first intake of students in the General Medicine programme (106 students) was in the autumn of 2010.
The Faculty of Medicine offers a six-year Master’s degree in General Medicine, and five-years Master’s degree in Dentristy, plus a range of Bachelor degrees for health care professions: General Nursing, Pediatric Nursing, Midwifery, Physiotherapy, Ergotherapy, Nutritional Therapy, Medical Rescue (Emergency Paramedic), Laboratory Diagnostics, Radiological Assistance, Health Protection and Promotion. Some of these degrees can be followed by two-year Master’s degrees: Psychiatric Nursing, Surgical Nursing, Medical Nursing, Community Midwifery, Intensive Care, Applied Physiotherapy, Protection and Promotion of Public Health. The Faculty also launched seven doctoral degree programmes: Nursing; Surgical Disciplines; Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology; Clinical Neurosciences; Experimental and Clinical Medicine in Hematology and Oncology; Internal Diseases; Clinical biochemistry, pathobiochemistry and laboratory medicine.
Since 2008 the Faculty of Medicine has collaborated with the University L.U.de.S. Lugano-Pazzallo (Switzerland) to offer a Double Diploma. The Faculty also offers a Physiotherapy degree taught in English, and (since 2011/2012) a degree in Physiotherapy taught in Italian (teaching takes place at our partner institution in Lugano). This cooperation was suspended in 2014, when the cooperation was localized only in Chiasso, where it continues until now. Since 2019, the LF OU has also been cooperating on the territory of Italy, in Rome, where the Bachelor's study program of Physiotherapy in Italian is also accredited.
The Faculty of Medicine is guided by European Union priorities for higher education and training of health care and medical professionals. All of the Faculty’s degrees training students to work as health care and medical professionals are fully accredited by the Czech Ministry of Health, and graduates have the necessary qualifications allowing them to practice these professions. Practical training forms an essential and integral part of teaching at the Faculty. Practical tuition takes place mainly at the specialist centres of Ostrava’s University Hospital, the Institute of Public Health Ostrava, and other health care providers in Ostrava and the wider region.
The faculty is also a member of a number of important national and international organizations.
During the course of its history, the Medical-Social Faculty (later the Faculty of Health Care Studies and now the Faculty of Medicine) has been headed by a series of Deans:
Updated: 22. 10. 2024
