Gdańsk Medical University

Ogólne informacje

The Medical University of Gdańsk is the largest medical academic institution in northern Poland. It educates more than 5000 undergraduate and postgraduate students in four faculties.HistoryThe Akademia Lekarska in Gdańsk was founded on 8 October 1945. Its history is related to the tradition of medical practice of surgeons associated in the Surgeons Guild (active since 1454), as well as teaching and medical and scientific research, particularly in Gdańskie Gimnazjum Akademickie (Atheneum Gedanese) established in 1558. This institution set up the Department of Science and Medicine (physices et medicinae), which was managed and supervised by eminent scholars. Among the most famous lecturers were: Joachim Oelhafius, a native of Gdańsk, who in 1613 was the first to perform a public autopsy of a newborn child in northern Europe, and Dr Jan Adam Kulmus, the author of the anatomical atlas Tabulae anatomicae, published in 1932. The work went into several editions and was translated into many languages. The Gimnazjum Akademickie represented a high standard of achievement and its graduates were accepted in the third year of medical studies at universities. After the closing of the Gimnazjum Akademickie at the beginning of the 19th century, it was not until the first years of the 20th century that another academic school was established.Pharmaceutical sciences in Gdańsk date back to the times of Johannes Placotomus, author and founder of the first pharmacy in Gdańsk in 1527, and Johannes Schmiedt, alias Fabritius, the co-author of the oldest Polish pharmacopoeia, published in 1665.