Medical Schools

in the USSR, specialized secondary educational institutions that provide specialists with a secondary medical and pharmaceutical education for work in health care facilities as physicians’ assistants, midwives, sanitation assistants, laboratory assistants, nurses, pediatric nurses, dentists, dental technicians, pharmacists, technicians for the installation and repair of X-ray and medical equipment, and opticians.

Medical schools admit graduates of eight-year and secondary general educational schools. Students admitted after graduating from an eight-year school receive a complete general secondary education and take a specialized course of study. As of the 1972-73 academic year, there were 649 medical schools with a total enrollment of more than 400,000 students in the USSR. A total of 136,500 specialists graduated from Soviet medical schools in 1972.