Former military hospital officially opened its doors as a part of the medical campus on 12th March.
The meeting was the first ever event hosted by a renovated meeting room of the new teaching and laboratory building. It is one the oldest surviving building complexes in Kazan, dating back to 1809. In 2016, long after the military hospital had vacated the premises, they were transferred to KFU with aims to expand the Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology. Three buildings have a total area of 4,954 square meters. The investment into renovation amounted to 397.8 million rubles. Along with classrooms and labs, the new complex also includes the Medical Accreditation Center that may soon host tests for the whole republic.
President Minnikhanov addressed the attendees, “Today, we have a good opportunity to talk and exchange thoughts. We have unified standards and approaches, and thanks to them we can now find solutions in preventive medicine. I want to thank Ilshat Rafkatovich. These buildings will serve medicine. I think this project is a very good one. The investment that we allocate to healthcare gives hope for more achievements, and it’s a win for everyone that we now add the might of a federal university.”
Rector Gafurov responded, “We offer our colleagues all this infrastructure for joint workshops and discussions. We are ready to provide our library funds – 8 thousand journals and 15 million articles. There are examples of good cooperation now. Still, I think we need a republican program of the development of medical science, including IT in medicine.”
The federal university alone cannot make Kazan a center of medical science. For instance, in pure numbers of publications among Russian cities of comparable sizes Kazan is still behind Novosibirsk.
Another obvious issue is a lack of practicing doctors in research. Naturally, most professionals don’t even have time to read up on their area of expertise, let alone conduct any research. The fact that many papers are behind a steep paywall only exacerbates the problem.
During the meeting, practical questions of medical sphere were discussed, including staff management, education, digitization, and personalization of treatment.