The international student exchange programmes - Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Florence (1): Teaching

The medical-surgical ‘tradition’ in Florence has a much longer history than Florence University itself, which was founded in 1924 together with the Faculty of Medicine. Indeed, a School of Surgery was present within the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital as early as in the XIIIth century. The Florentine School of Surgery was very much appreciated during the centuries, insomuch as even those who graduated in medicine at the prestigious Universities of Pisa and Siena were obliged to attend a two-year internship at the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital Surgery School in order to obtain their licence to practice as doctors. Indeed, in the Middle Ages in Tuscany, in order to develop the right skills to become a qualified medical doctor, it was considered of primary importance not to study and practice within one single university but to travel and study in distant schools: a premonition of the present international student exchange programmes. Still to-day the Faculty of Medicine at Florence University, together with the Dean, the Delegate Committee, and the Didactic Committee for International Mobility strongly believes in international student exchange programmes. The faculty considers them a top investment for the development of internationally-oriented future medical doctors. Modern-day students, travelling and studying in various countries, have the opportunity to open their minds, to learn a new language, and to acquire the right skills to practise throughout the various countries of a united Europe.