The Medical University of Silesia in Katowice was established by the Ordinance of the Minister of Health of March 20th 1948, as a Medical Academy consisting of one School of Medicine and one Division of Dentistry. From the very beginning, the university has enjoyed the status of a state university. Its first seat was Rokitnica Bytomska (presently, Zabrze- Rokitnica), where in the former hospital buildings of the Bracka Company, the Rector’s Office and the library as well as the theoretical sciences departments were installed. The first clinical sciences departments were situated in the hospitals in Zabrze and Bytom. The subsequent ones, as the university was developing, were established in various other towns of the Silesia region, i.e. Katowice, Lubliniec, Tarnowskie Góry, Chorzów, Tychy, and Sosnowiec. In the 70s of the past century, the university considerably expanded. In 1971, it eventually found its legal seat in Katowice. In the same year, the construction of the academic campus in Katowice-Ligota was started and the School of Pharmacy in Sosnowiec was established. Three years later , the School of Nursing was established in Katowice, which was then attached to the 2nd School of Medicine in Katowice, established in 1975. In the recent years, the School of Health Care in Katowice (2001) and the School of Public Health in Bytom (2002) were established.

Fields of Study:

ŚAM comprises five Schools:

1. School of Medicine and Division of Dentistry in Zabrze : fields of medicine and dentistry
2. School of Medicine in Katowice: field of medicine
3. School of Pharmacy and Division of Laboratory Medicine in Sosnowiec: fields of: pharmacy, medical analytics, cosmetology, biotechnology, informatics with focus on bioinformatics
4. School of Health Care in Katowice: fields of: nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy
5. School of Public Health in Bytom: field of public health , including such specialties as: medical emergency treatment, employee health care, dietetics, epidemiology and biostatistics, environmental health.

The Medical University of Silesia in Katowice holds an accreditation of the State Accreditation Commission, upon which it is entitled to provide education in the fields of medicine, pharmacy, medical analytics, public health, nursing and midwifery. Beside the daily studies, the Medical University of Silesia offers extramural and evening studies. Also, within the postgraduate training programme, daily, evening , and extramural postgraduate doctoral studies are offered, as well as specialist training and residency programmes.

Educational offer for foreign candidates:

The Medical University of Silesia in Katowice holds a certificate of the US Department of Education , upon which it is entitled to provide education in English in the field of medicine in the School of Medicine in Katowice (since 1996). Detailed information on admission requirements and the necessary documents is available on the English version website of the university: www.slam.katowice.pl. 

Alumni:

Presently, 32,095 alumni hold a diploma of the Medical University of Silesia, including:

• 26,036 physicians and dentists
• 3,646 pharmacists, medical analysts, and cosmetologists
• 2,172 nurses and physiotherapists
• 241 public health specialists

International Co-operation:

Since the 2005/2006 academic year, the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice has been participating in the Socrates/Erasmus international exchange programme for undergraduate students, postgraduate doctoral students, and academic teachers. Co-operation agreements in this matter have already been signed with as many as 20 medical universities from such countries as : The Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Holland, Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Rumania, Turkey. In all of the Schools of the Medical University of Silesia, the European Credit Transfer System, indispensable for international exchange, has been introduced. The university also participates in multi-center clinical research programmes as well as in the projects within 6th European Union Framework Programme. Many of the university departments and clinics work in co-operation with european research centers and research institutions from other parts of the world, such as US, Canada, Japan.

University staff and educational & research basis:

Currently, the number of the academic staff providing education and conducting research in all the years of study and in all the fields of study is 1449 academic teachers, including 235 independent researchers and 1214 dependent academic staff members. Many of the representatives of the academic staff are involved in the work of entities acting outside the university, e.g. committees of the Polish Academy of Sciences, scientific institutes and societies, and also, national specialist supervisory bodies.

The educational, research and clinical basis of the Medical University of Silesia comprises over 200 organisational units (departments, institutes, clinics, clinical departments, colleges, and other units), located mainly in the towns which are the legal seats of the respective schools, i.e. in Zabrze, Katowice, Sosnowiec, and Bytom. The Schools have at their disposal well-equipped lecture halls, seminar rooms, and classrooms. The practical training in clinical subjects is provided by the clinical sciences departments. The university has 7 self-governing public clinical hospitals: 2 in Zabrze, and 5 in Katowice. The clinical sciences departments of the Medical University of Silesia are also based on 10 other health care institutions in Katowice, Zabrze, Bytom, Sosnowiec, Tychy, Tarnowskie Góry, and Ruda Śląska. The Medical University of Silesia can boast of a most spectacular research paper output among the medical universities in Poland (the total number of research publications within the past 25 years being 60,000, approximately).

Library:

The Library of the Medical University of Silesia has collected approximately 149,000 volumes of books and over 29,000 volumes of specialist medical magazines, deposited mainly in the Main Library in Katowice and its office branches in the university schools in Katowice-Ligota, Zabrze, Zabrze-Rokitnica, and Sosnowiec. All of the university libraries have reading rooms, both traditional and computerized . The Library operates within the ALEPH integrated library-information system, which enables full service of the readers who seek information on any title deposited in any of the the university libraries (including on-line orders, monitoring of the inflow of books and magazines). The library catalogues are available through the university library network , and also via the Internet , from a PC. Thanks to the medical databases, such as Medline, Embase, Proquest, Cochrane Library, SCI-Expanded, the Library of the Medical University of Silesia provides access to the electronic version of research publications, and also offers instruction how to use medical databases and the Internet.

Achievements:

The clinics and clinical departments of the Medical University of Silesia rank high in the medical services domestic market and they are given top places in various ranking lists as the best centers in many medical areas, such as cardiosurgery, cardiology (first places in the latest ranking list of the WPROST weekly magazine), invasive cardiology, angioplasty, electrocardiology, hematology, highly specialist surgery, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, nephrology, and gastroenterology.

Address:
ul. Warszawska 14
40-006 Katowice
www.slam.katowice.pl
tel. + 48 32 208 35 07