The Department of Public Health at Sumy State University was established in 2017 as a graduating department of training specialists in the field of Public Health. The need to establish the department was due to the reform of health care in Ukraine, based on shifting the focus from treatment to prevention through the development of a new public health system on a national basis, as provided for in Chapter 22 of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU. According to the above resolution, SumDU was the first in Ukraine to receive a license for educational activities of educational institutions in the field of higher education in order to train specialists in “Public Health” for the first (bachelor’s) level of higher education (protocol №51 / 1 from 12.05.2017 and №49 / 1 dated 21.04.2017).
The order of the Cabinet of Ministers of 18.08.2017 №560-r approved the action plan for the implementation of the Concept of development of the public health system. In accordance with paragraph 3 of this action plan provided for the development and approval of educational standards and educational programs in the specialty “Public Health” to ensure continuous professional development, development of an action plan for the development of human resources in the public health system.
After the creation of the Department of Public Health until the beginning of the 2017 academic year, the recruitment of entrants for the relevant specialty was conducted. The department was created by combining part of the Department of Social Medicine and the Department of Hygiene and Ecology with a course in microbiology, virology and immunology. From the beginning of the department and until now the head of the department is Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Vladislav Anatolievich Smiyanov.
Currently, the department has: 4 doctors of sciences, 4 professors, 13 candidates of sciences, 5 associate professors, 4 senior lecturers and 6 assistants, 13 graduate students, 5 laboratory assistants and 2 preparators.
The department provides training for specialists in the specialties of “Public Health” (bachelors), “Medical Affairs”, “Pediatrics” and “Dentistry” (masters), as well as the department trains graduate students in the specialties “Preventive Medicine”, “Theoretical Medicine” and “Biology”. The main levels of training at the department: bachelor, master, graduate student, doctoral student, clinical resident, postgraduate training of doctors.
