Students of the Plzeň Medical Faculty have taken their seats in the lecture halls of the new building for the first time

Plzeň - A new university building costing 1.84 billion crowns has started serving students of the Faculty of Medicine at Charles University in Plzeň today. The building is part of the university campus, which was created in close proximity to the teaching hospital. Until now, the education of future doctors in Plzeň was scattered across buildings throughout the city. The campus welcomed its first students, educators, and researchers in 2014 when the first phase of construction was completed. Today, students and educators began the academic year in the new building, which started construction in 2019. Plzeň has thus gained the most modern facility for the study of medicine in the Czech Republic, said the dean of the faculty, Jindřich Fínek, to ČTK today.

"The new building is a space that impresses with its size and spaciousness. It offers unprecedented comfort and modern amenities for teaching, with interactive elements, both communal and individual study rooms. Attention was also paid to creating a pleasant environment, so we have several floral walls,” he said. The complex also includes a new cafeteria connected to a café.

In the new building with six above-ground and three underground floors, other theoretical departments of the faculty, the dean's office, all supportive departments of the faculty, and the library have found their home. The building contains three lecture halls, 23 rooms for practicals and seminars, examination rooms with outpatient clinics, 29 laboratories, a simulation center, study rooms, and other spaces. Students and educators have access to state-of-the-art technologies, such as a simulation center that will serve for practicing medical activities in emergency and intensive care medicine.

The construction of the Faculty of Medicine campus in Plzeň began with the building of the first building for theoretical institutes and the Biomedical Center in 2012. The buildings began to serve in 2014, and in 2016 a lecture hall was completed. The faculty started construction of the second phase of the campus in 2019, and the new building was approved in June 2022. The new construction cost 1.84 billion crowns, of which one billion was a European grant from the Operational Program Research, Development, and Education; over 600 million crowns were financed from the university's and the faculty's own resources, and the rest came from the state budget. Aside from the new campus, only the Institute of Physical Education remains, which is still located in the student dormitory facilities on Bolevecká Street. There are also plans for a sports hall to be built on the campus in the future, where this institute could potentially relocate.

Each year, the Faculty of Medicine in Plzeň admits around 300 applicants for general medicine and 50 students for dentistry in Czech programs. In English programs, there are about 90 students for general medicine and ten future dentists. In total, more than 2000 future doctors are studying at the faculty across all years, as well as about 200 students in postgraduate programs.