Issues of Russian military medical education: a historical analysis

The paper analyzes the evolution of issues faced by the Russian military medical education system during its establishment and development. Such issues arose from many reasons, but we can highlight the most important ones. First of all, the medical training management depends on the country’s leadership perspective on the system of training of medical personnel in general and on the place and role of military medicine in the Army and Navy structure. In this case, regardless of the social system, there has been imbalance, e.g. excessive militarization of education to the detriment of students (cadets) acquiring special knowledge and the discarding of all military medical disciplines from the curriculum. Some issues, including underfunding, protectionism, and other factors, are permanent and have been traced back to more than three centuries. Another threat is ill-conceived pedagogical experiments. As history is cyclical, awareness of the problems we faced in relation to medical training development in the past, along with methods of addressing them by our predecessors and their effects may be indispensable for making new decisions regarding the development of the Russian military medical education.