Dear students, dear colleagues,

I am delighted to welcome you as new members of the Academic Community of the Third Faculty of Medicine of Charles University. It is uplifting to see that you have decided to help the sick in your future profession. I am also very happy that you decided to study at our Faculty. Let me introduce the Faculty. The Faculty of Medicine in Prague was founded in 1348 together with the foundation of Charles University. In 1953, it was divided into three separate faculties - one of which was the Faculty of Medical Hygiene (Public Health) in the Vinohrady medical campus. After 1990, the Faculty moved to a new (current) building, and both the contents of the study and the name of the Faculty changed to its present form. Our Third Faculty of Medicine therefore educates future doctors in the full range of medical sciences (Master's degree in General medicine), as well as other health specialists in the respective Bachelor’s level disciplines. A very important part of the Faculty activities is research, which involves also many of our students. Doctoral study programmes are then used to educate future scientific or academic staff.

The Third Faculty of Medicine is one of eight faculties of medicine in the Czech Republic. By size we are among the small or medium-sized faculties but thanks to our scientific output and also thanks to an independent evaluation of the graduates' success it ranks among the most successful in the country. This is also due to the great emphasis we place on practical lessons. Our system of teaching is called „problem-oriented“ teaching, which in practice means that we teach students to understand the context, to treat patients as concrete people, people with a certain symptom, and to properly analyze this symptom and suggest further steps. This difference in emphasis and teaching paradigm is easily seen when you compare the exam titles at our Faculty with other (traditionally profiled) medical faculties - especially in lower study years.

A very valuable element is the open and friendly relationship between students and educators. You have all gone through demanding entrance exams. We are proud that our system of admission enrols self-confident, polite and intelligent students who grow into real personalities during their studies. The Faculty supports student activities - especially if they focus on members of the Academic Community of the Faculty (for their scientific, sporting, cultural or other interests, etc.) or on charity.

I am looking forward to meeting you during your studies, I am also looking forward to your efforts to improve the level of teaching, and I firmly believe that you will be able to manage demanding study, and at the end we will meet at your graduation ceremony. I finish with the traditional academic „Quod bonum, felix, faustum, fortunatumque sit.“

prof. MUDr. Petr Widimsky, DrSc.,

Dean of the Third Faculty of Medicine of Charles University