The Vinohrady health care campus started its development in the
beginning of the 20th century, by then at the city periphery. In 1902, the Emperor Franz Joseph I
inaugurated the Vinohrady Hospital as the primary hospital for citizens of Královské Vinohrady and
Žižkov districts. In 1925 the State Health Institute was openin its vicinity. Both institutions
soon started playing key roles in the development of health care in Prague, Bohemia and
Czechoslovakia. Prior to the division of Faculty of Medicine in 1953, both insitutions served to
training of medical students, based on systematic activity of their noteworthy staff.
Of the Vinohrady Hospital, there were namely the Prof. of Ophthalmology Josef Janků, the discoverer of ophthalmic
toxoplasmosis (M. Jankumi); Prof. of Lung and Abdominal Surgery Emerich Polák; the founder of
Czech plastic surgery Prof. František Burian. After the WWII: the founder of Czechoslovak
diabetology Prof. Jiří Syllaba, a famous cardiologist Prof. Vratislav Jonáš, the founder of Czech
pediatric haematology Dr. Jiří Janele, Prof. of Neurology J. Šebek, Prof. of Forensic Medicine E.
Knobloch or the Head of Psychiatric Institute doc. V. Petráň.
Of the State Health Institute staff namely: Prof. Ivan Honl, who established the first therapeutic
Pasteur Institute on the terrritory of our state. The staff of this Institute participated in
numerous world-wide programmes of the World Health Organization after WWII, among others in global
eradication of small-pox (Prof. Karel Raška). Based on such a rich tradition,
it was feasible to establish a new medical faculty on the Vinohrady health care campus.
Our Faculty refers to the tradition of medical studies at Charles University as it formed one of the four basic subjects
upon its foundation in 1348. From the academic year 1882/83, the Faculty of Medicine, just
as the rest of the University, was divided into two parts – German and Czech. On November
17th,1939, together with all other Czech schools, the Czech part of the University was closed. This
temporary halt in Czech education lasted till 1945. Then, along with the whole of German
University, the German Faculty of Medicine was abolished. Its property was handed over to the Czech
Faculty of Medicine. In 1953 the Ministry of Higher Education divided the Faculty of Medicine in
Prague into three separate faculties: the Faculty of General Medicine (including stomatology), the
Faculty of Pediatrics, and the Faculty of Hygiene. The latter was transformed into the current 3rd
Faculty of Medicine in 1990.The fact that a new independent Faculty of Hygiene was created in 1953 brought about some
fundamental changes: this Faculty preserved a basic medical focus, although it specialized
in the fields of hygiene and prevention. On the one hand this specialization enabled to develop all
branches of hygiene in our post–war medicine, but on the other it at the same time restricted and
limited the scope of students’ realization in clinical practice.
The medical instruction at the communist era was branded by a rather
formalistic and cadre based approach. Since November 1989 we have been able to carry out all
substantial changes in the organization of the Faculty requisite for the realization of the new curriculum and study
reforms. The name of the Faculty was changed to the 3rd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, which
underlined its primary general focus. Assoc. Prof. Cyril Höschl, MD, was the first Dean of the Faculty elected in the free elections after the
revolution in 1989. The Academic Senate was established then along with the Scientific
Council which nowadays enlists many outstanding foreign members. There were competitions for all
the leading positions at particular Institutes, clinics, and for other university positions. The
curriculum has been restructured so that the study plan reflects the general orientation of the
Faculty integrating a developed area of preventive subjects. Plenty of employees from diverse
sections of the Ministry of Health and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic are directly
involved in the pedagogic as well as research activities of the Faculty.
In September 1992 a new Faculty building at Ruská street was
opened. It houses the Dean’s Office, different theoretical Departments, Departments of hygiene and
preventive subjects, and, last but not least, the Center for Scientific Information, newly
established in 1992. In May 1991 Mrs. Margaret M. Bertrand, a Canadian professor of
English language, founded a prize for the best student of the Faculty to be awarded annually at the
graduation ceremony. The conditions for study and scientific work have improved with
the opening of the newly constructed 6th floor of the main faculty building in May
2000, accommodating among others the Department of Nutrition and laboratories of chemistry
and molecular biology. Further improvement has come in May 2006 with the recontructed part of the Nursing College on
Ruská 91 where the Department of Medical Ethics, Nursing and Foreign Languages are now
based.
Students´ visits abroad are becoming an indelible part of
instruction at the Faculty. Participation in international scientific and research programmes and
lectures by foreign specialists enable the Faculty to spread its wings and establish new mutually
beneficial scientific fellowships. This facilitates improvements in the quality of teaching
material, studies of new methods, procedures, and approaches, thus creating technical conditions
indispensable for achieving a higher level of education.
The 3rd Faculty of Medicine conferred its teaching degrees to many
outstanding personalities in the last three years, among the most prominent were: Prof. Zdeněk Neubauer in biology, Doc. Ivan M. Havel in artificial
intelligence, and Prof. Luboslav Stárka in endocrinology. At the same time, several dozens
of lectures by well–known foreign specialists took place on the precincts of the Faculty. Let us
mention at least the Nobel Prize winner in neurophysiology Prof. J. Eccles, famous
specialist in psychiatry Prof. P. Grof, and daseins-analytic Prof. Condrau. As proposed by
the Scientific Council of Faculty, Sir Karl Raimund Popper (1902–1996), epistemologist, open
society proponent, one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, was awarded the
degree of doctor honoris causa in medicine on 25 May 1994. The 3rd Faculty of Medicine was a party in awarding a
honorary doctorate to one of the discoverers of DNA, Nobel Prize winner, Prof. James Watson. Likewise, on the occasion of the 650th
anniversary of the Charles University foundation, we suggested that another Nobel Prize winner, a
world–wide known neurophysiologist, Professor Huxley from Great Britain, be also awarded a
honorary doctorate in 1998.
MUDr. P. Čech of our Faculty initiated the placement of honorary plaques in memory of the Nobel Prize winners in Medicine
Mr. and Mrs. Cori to their birthplace houses in Salmovska and Petrska streets in Prague within the project Prague–European City of Culture
2000.
The co–operation among individual Faculties of the University, in
particular Faculties of Medicine, is on the increase. The University supports healthy competition
in sport activities among faculties, and students also take part in various social and cultural
events not only in this country but abroad. The Faculty publishes VITA NOSTRA magazine, reflecting
the academic life of the community and representing diverse sides of the Faculty in two
functionally distinct issues: VITA NOSTRA REVUE, a quarterly collection of articles, commentaries,
and reflections, and VITA NOSTRA SERVIS, an information bulletin which comes out on a weekly basis.
In the academic year 1991/92 the Faculty took on foreign students in General Medicine
with the Focus on Prevention. The language of instruction is English. The rights and duties of
foreign students are stipulated in the contracts signed between the student and the Dean of the
Faculty.
New demands of modern medicine on doctors are reflected in the new
curriculum of Medicine, which the Faculty has been implementing since the academic year
1996/97.
The teaching basis of the 3. LF includes the Faculty Hospital
Královské Vinohrady in Prague 10, Psychiatric Centre Praha, Faculty Hospital Bulovka, Thomayer
Faculty Hospital, Institute for Mother and Child Care in Prague - Podolí, Hospital Na Homolce,
Central Military Hospital, Hospital Pod Petřínem and State Health Institute. Prominent experts of
the Czech Academy of Sciences and Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine also participate
in the teaching.
