INFORMATION ON THE DEPARTMENT

A. The ECTS/ERASMUS/SOCRATES Departmental Coordinator

The ECTS Coordinator of the Medical School of the University of Thessaloniki is :
Constantine Arvanitakis, MD, FACP, FRCP, Professor of Medicine, University of Thessaloniki Hippocrateion General Hospital.

The address is:

Fourth Department of Medicine, University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54006, Greece.
Telephone 30-31-992821 /852622, Fax 30-31-212513/852622.

B. Description of the Department

The Medical School in its current structure and scope is one of the major established Medical Schools in Greece with a student enrollment of 3.000.
The School awards the Medical Diploma (Ptychio latrikis) equivalent to the MD degree (US Universities) and the Doctoral degree (MD Thesis), for a research project.

The structure of the Medical School consists of nine Departments:
1) Anatomy and Pathology
2) Physiology and Pharmacology
3) Biological Sciences and Preventive Medicine
4) Radiology, Medical Physics and Informatics
5) Sensory Organs (Ophthalmology-ENT)
6) Child Health (Pediatrics-Pediatric Surgery)
7) Neurosciences (Neurology-Psychiatry-Neurosurgery)
8) Surgery
9) Internal Medicine.

Basic Sciences Courses are conducted in the Auditoria and Lecture Halls in the Campus area.
Clinical courses and clerkships take place in the teaching hospitals :
#AHEPA
#Hippokrateion
# Central Hospital
#Papanikolaou Hospital

C. Program of Studies

General Course structure
Studies in Medical School are completed in 12 semesters (2 semesters per year) and include the following:
a) Full teaching of a course by lectures
b) Special classes, seminars, workshops and demonstrations
c) Laboratory and Clinical teaching

For each course or groups of courses, textbooks, monographs and other education publications are provided to the students free of charge.

Studies include required and elective courses.

The title, content, teaching hours and their sequence in semesters appear in the curriculum of medical studies (Annex I).

Each course in a given semester corresponds to a number of credits. One credit is equivalent to one weekly teaching hour for the entire semester. The requirements for graduation depend on the number of credits, as stated in the curriculum.

The Curriculum of Medical Studies may be subject to revisions each year, approved by the General Assembly of the Medical School.

The Curriculum is composed of three major Units:
- Required Courses
- Elective Courses
- Clinical Clerkships

Required Courses
The mandatory courses are classified as:
a) basic science
b) clinical
c) special courses
d) foreign languages.

Basic science courses provide the student with the necessary fundamental knowledge of normal structure and functions of human body and the mechanisms of disease.
Clinical courses by lectures and clinical teaching provide the students with the methodology of clinical thinking and the approach to patient problems.
Special courses which emphasize the importance of social and environmental factors in human disease.

Foreign languages are taught during the first 4 semesters and the teaching is structured toward medical terminology and literature.

Elective Courses
The elective courses aim to:
a) Familiarize the student with specific topics and problems in Medicine.
b) Provide the student with a deeper insight into special aspects of Medicine which may interest him/her and prepare him/her for eventual specialization.
c) Enhance the development of special areas in education and research.
d) Strengthen the links between pre- and clinical subjects, since some of these courses are multidisciplinary.

Each student is required to attend and successfully complete a minimal of 8 elective courses, with a total of 16 credits (208 hours).

Clinical clerkships
The students during the Eleventh and Twelfth Semester attend :
- a 12-week Clinical Clerkship in Internal Medicine and Surgery
- 6 weeks in Pediatrics
- 4 weeks in Gynecology-Obstetrics and Neurology-Psychiatry.

These courses provide the student with clinical experience and ability to analyse and participate in the patient problems, diagnosis and management.

Regulations and Progression
The courses of Anatomy I-II, Physiology I-II and Biochemistry I-II are considered prequisites.
This indicates that the students should successfully complete at least three of these courses before they attend the courses of Physical Diagnosis in Internal Medicine and Surgery, four before they attend the course in Internal Medicine and five before Clinical Clerkship.

Examinations - Assessment
Assessment is conducted by oral or written examination, and performance in the Laboratory or the Clinic.
The Grading system is 0-10 (0 being the lowest and 10 the highest).
Five (5) is the passing grade and the scale is:
- 5-6.5 (good)
- 6.5-8.5 (very good)
- 8.5-10 (excellent).

In the ECTS scale:
- grade 10 corresponds to A
- grade 8-9 corresonds to B
- grade 7 correspnds to C
- grade 6 corresponds to D
- grade 5 corresponds to E