News
The school year began with pleasant events. In September, after long repairs, we returned to the building of the North-Western State Medical University n. a. I.I. Mechnikov on Zanevsky Prospect. Now the Institute has three spacious auditoriums with a view of the Neva, a scientific laboratory and its own library - everything necessary to make the learning process comfortable and interesting! Two months later our team celebrated the opening of our Moscow office in the famous office complex "Krylatsky Hills". All the Moscow teachers attended the event, as well as numerous guests. Two spacious equipped auditoriums, as well as the administrative premises are at the disposal of the students and the employees of the branch.
In the academic year 2016-2017 five new groups started their studies in the Institute: in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Omsk and Samara. We want to make osteopathic education accessible not only for those who live in capitals. Training of osteopaths in other cities is one of our priorities. That is why in the next academic year we also plan to open groups not only in St. Petersburg and Moscow, but also in Kazan and Samara.
In the academic year 2016-2017 we also began to develop new courses. In September the Institute opened a School of massage under the direction of Antonina Ivanova, one of the most renowned specialists in this field, who has trained over 4000 massage therapists during 30 years. Not long after a new project of the Institute was launched - the School of Manual Medicine, in which medical students get acquainted with the fundamentals of massage, osteopathy and manual therapy.
For those who already have an osteopathic diploma, the Institute traditionally offers a large number of postgraduate seminars and educational programs. If earlier a lot of osteopaths attended workshops held by well-known international lecturers, in 2016-2017 the seminars held by the lecturers of our Institute were also very popular. This points to the fact that the level of osteopathic education in our country is constantly growing, and Russian specialists are highly competitive with their foreign colleagues in knowledge, experience and pedagogical skills.
It is worth noting that for the first time a part of the Institute's postgraduate projects was accredited in the system of continuous medical education (CME) and our students received CME certificates and educational credits which they will need for the future accreditation.
In the last academic year the Institute continued its’ work on the development of osteopathy as a scientific discipline. On October 25th and 26th, 2016, the All-Russian Scientific Conference "Current problems of Osteopathy -2016" was held in the Institute. It was attended by more than 100 doctors from St. Petersburg, Moscow and the Moscow region, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Omsk, Vladivostok and other cities. It is especially important that the leaders of all the educational institutions providing osteopathic education in Russia met for the first time at the conference.
In March 2017 we were happy with another success of our specialty. The achievements of osteopathy were recognized at the highest level. For the first time in accordance with the decree of the President of the Russian Federation the title "Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation" was awarded to an osteopath. The director of our Institute Dmitry Mokhov received this honorary title. The governor of St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko handed him this honorable award.
Important changes have occurred in the sphere of legislative regulation of osteopathy. On April 10th, 2017, the Ministry of Education and Science signed an order No. 320 "On Amendments to the Lists of Specialties and Fields of Higher Education." Osteopathy was included in the number of basic medical specialties which involve full-time training, such as general medicine, pediatrics and dentistry. This means that in the nearest future osteopaths will master their future profession in medical universities during five years. Thus, the Ministry supported the initiative of the Russian Osteopathic Association (ROsA), of the Federal Methodological Center for Osteopathy and of the Department of Osteopathy of the North-Western State Medical University n. a. I. I. Mechnikov.
The academic year ended with an annual osteopathic scientific event Osteopathy Open 2017, which was organized for the second time under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. For the first time it was decided to change the tradition of holding the congress in St. Petersburg, so in 2017 Osteopathy Open was held in the hospitable city of Kazan. The event was large-scale: more than 500 participants from 40 regions of Russia, as well as from France, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, Israel, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, 6 scientific symposiums, more than 80 reports, 15 master classes from well-known Russian and foreign specialists. You can read the detailed report about the congress.
Of course our graduates of the year 2017 are to be mentioned. This year groups from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan and Perm completed their training. The diplomas were delivered in two cities - first in Kazan within the framework of Osteopathy Open, then in St. Petersburg. The ceremonies were both solemn and touching. There were words of gratitude to the beloved teachers and farewell speeches to the former students. Of course, we do not say goodbye to our graduates-we will meet them again at our postgraduate seminars and at the congress Osteopathy Open, and some of them will become our teachers.
The past year was difficult for us, but undoubtedly successful. Together we worked on difficult tasks and rejoiced in the successes. We wish all our colleagues a good holiday. See you in the new academic year!