• Universities

Located in northern Belarus, Vitebsk State Order of People’s Friendship Medical University offers training for future physicians, dentists and pharmacists. The university is divided into seven faculties, which are staffed by 56 doctors and 227 professors.The university was the first in Belarus to offer training for medical students from other countries. All overseas students must complete a preparatory course with lectures in biology, chemistry, physics and the Russian language before they begin an undergraduate course.Teaching can be given in a mixture of Russian and English or in Russian only, depending on the programme. About one in seven students at the university are from outside Belarus.Postgraduate training is offered in a number of specialities, including surgery, oncology, traumatology, clinical practice and paediatrics. The university publishes several magazines related to its research areas, two examples of which are “News of Surgery” and “Immunology, Allergology, Infectiology”.The university runs several hospitals and medical facilities in Vitebsk, with the total bed capacity for patients across its various centres numbering 4,200.Painter Marc Chagall spent the early years of his life in Vitebsk in a house his father built, which is now a museum dedicated to the artist and his time in the city. In 1957, he wrote a letter titled “To My City Vitebsk” in which he talked about the creative inspiration he drew from the region.A number of international agreements are in place between the university and various educational establishments abroad, with many of these in Russia and the Ukraine.