Medical University named after legend

Peter Pospelov created a whole school of doctors and scientists

Representatives of medical science and education, university veterans, heads of Kazakh and foreign universities, research centers and companies gathered at the solemn ceremony on this occasion.

Akim of Karaganda region Yermaganbet Bulekpayev noted that the contribution of Peter Pospelov to the development of domestic medicine is difficult to overestimate.

Karaganda has become Pospelov’s hometown, and the development of Kazakh medicine is a matter of a lifetime. And perhaps the most important thing that Pyotr Moiseevich managed to achieve was to create not just a medical institute, but a real school of doctors, scientists and teachers, which continues to develop today. Students, you have chosen a profession in which it is not enough just to know your business well. It is very important to be able to hear a person, understand his pain and be there in the most difficult moments. This was the attitude of Peter Moiseevich to people. I would like each of you to become an example of a person who managed to do a lot for his country and its inhabitants, the head of the region said.

He also stressed that one of the tasks of the local authorities is to create conditions for young specialists to grow professionally and want to stay in their native land. To do this, the region is developing medical infrastructure and improving the working conditions of doctors.

- The awarding of the name of Pyotr Moiseevich Pospelov to the university is both a high honor and a great responsibility. I am sure that the team will preserve the best traditions of the national medical school and multiply them with new scientific and practical achievements, First Vice Minister of Health Timur Sultangaziev congratulated the university on a new stage in its history.

He believed in his students

Veteran in the field of health, Doctor of Medical Sciences Kanat Yermekbayev considers it important to perpetuate the name of Pospelov for the current and future generations of students and teachers.

— Pyotr Moiseevich Pospelov is one of the founders of the health care system of the Karaganda region. During the most difficult years, he headed the regional health department and was well aware of how much the region needed its own medical personnel. He persistently sought the opening of the Karaganda Medical Institute to solve the problem of providing the region with doctors, and in the future did much to develop medical education. The decision to name Pospelov University is very fair. This is an opportunity to preserve the memory of the person who stood at the origins of the university and laid the foundation for the training of medical personnel in the region, said Kanat Yermekbayev.

- My father worked in the team of Pyotr Moiseevich Pospelov and talked a lot about him. Especially remembered stories, how the rector supported applicants who came from the village. There was a situation where he called the health ministry to hammer out extra seats for the national cadres. He opened the road and helped to get medical education. I personally know graduates who later became academicians and professors. And for the students, the rector was very accessible - anyone could come to his appointment and talk. Petr Moiseevich was a true patriot of his native land, said Berik Tuleubayev, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Traumatology and Neurosurgery of the CMU.

Peter Pospelov was at the origins of higher medical education in Central Kazakhstan. He headed the institute for almost 25 years - since its opening in 1950. During this time, the university grew from a small educational institution located in the building of the former midwifery school to a large medical center with its own scientific and educational school. During the years of his leadership, the university has trained more than two thousand Kazakh doctors. Pospelov learned the Kazakh language and communicated freely with patients.

Strength test

- The fate of Pospelov from the very beginning was formed as a test of strength, - says the chairman of the board - rector of the Karaganda Medical University named after P. Pospelov Bakhyt Kosherov. Born in 1903 in the village of Rasshevatskaya in the family of Kuban Cossack Moses Timofeevich, Peter from an early age learned the price of peasant labor. In the father’s strong household, the hands of three sons were valued for their weight in gold. But in the heart of young Peter lived an ineradicable and burning thirst to become a doctor.

This was against the will of the parents. Leaving the house became a silent break: without his father’s approval, with ten rubles in his pocket and a bag of flour for a friend’s cart, Peter went to Krasnodar. Kuban Medical Institute met him not only with lectures, but also severe domestic deprivations. There was no one to help. A single letter from his father, which came soon, meagerly fixed the harsh reality: “If you go to study without our blessing, so learn as you wish...”.

And he studied. And worked. Having contracted the most severe form of malaria in 1923, after losing a whole year, he did not retreat. The desire to become not just a diploma holder, but a true healer led him through hunger and fatigue. Later, working as a medic at an ambulance station, and since 1929 - a doctor in the state farm and in rural areas in Georgievsk, he forever learned a simple truth: medicine is first of all a love of humanity, justice and the highest responsibility for someone else's life.

When in April 1933, a young doctor with his wife and young son came to a new building in Karaganda, where the third coal base of the USSR was being created among the steppe winds, few people could foresee what a grandiose path awaited him on Kazakh soil.

Karaganda met him with dust storms, harsh life and a huge amount of work, continues Bakhyt Kosherova. Accepted by an outpatient doctor, he headed the hospital a year later, and by 1940 he became the head of health of the Karaganda region.

At this high and firing post, Pospelov faced a major challenge that once and for all shaped his pedagogical and human credo. Organizing the work of hospitals and clinics, he noticed a painful pattern: young specialists who came to Kazakhstan for distribution from Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, worked out the mandatory three years, gained experience and inevitably went home. The only Alma-Ata medical institute in the republic could not fill the huge shortage of medical personnel. Karaganda coal basin, growing cities and remote villages needed their own – permanent, devoted to this land – doctors.

As a visionary and loving person of the country, he wholeheartedly wanted to open a second medical institute in Kazakhstan and saw it not just as a forge of white coats and diplomas, but as the embodiment of justice, where those who most need their native land – children from villages – will study medicine.

Limit voltage

- The path to realizing this dream lay through the terrible trials of the Great Patriotic War, said Bakhyt Kosherova. As the head of the regional health department, Pyotr Moiseevich took on his shoulders a giant work to deploy evacuation hospitals, save thousands of wounded, prevent epidemics. “Day with the sick and wounded, and in the evening at the loading of coal” – this short phrase of Dr. Pospelov describes the extreme stress of those years. But even in the wartime, giving all his strength to the rear, he did not leave thoughts about the future. As soon as the salutes of the Victory died off, he with triple energy began to break through the decision to open the university, eventually achieving a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the transfer of the base of the Kazan Dental Institute to Karaganda.

On April 21, 1950, Pyotr Moiseevich Pospelov was appointed director (and then rector) of the Karaganda State Medical Institute. From this moment, the era begins, in which he revealed himself not just as a talented administrator, but as a true father to several generations of Kazakhstani doctors.

- For him, every entrant from the hinterland was worth his weight in gold, says Bakhyt Kosherova. According to his direct instructions, additional classes were organized at the departments, experienced curators from among the best teachers were assigned, excellent students were attracted. With those who despaired, lost faith in themselves and was going to quit their studies, Rector Pospelov talked in person. He found the right kind words, encouraged, delicately clarified household needs, helped with hostel and food. He saw these timid young men and women as the future of Kazakh medicine, the very doctors who would return to their villages and district hospitals to save their countrymen.

He was able to dream big and build reliably. Attracting to Karaganda outstanding scientists from all over the Soviet Union - from Leningrad, Gorky, Simferopol, Kiev, he simultaneously created conditions for local cadres to grow alongside eminent professors. He personally wrote the text of the solemn promise of the student of KSMI, inserting a modern humanistic sound into the Hippocratic Oath. He initiated the creation of student scientific societies, took care of the improvement of dormitories, cafeterias, sports zones and a dispensary.

Humanity as the main heritage

“A dormitory is a place where a student spends a significant amount of time. Everything here should help the formation of a specialist, his aesthetic taste and worldview, the rector repeated. At the famous “Friday questions and answers” in student dormitories, Pospelov could answer hundreds of everyday and personal questions of young people for hours without a shadow of superiority, creating an incredibly warm family atmosphere at the institute.

- The main legacy of Pospelov was not only the educational buildings built by him on the streets of G.N. Alalykin and N.V. Gogol and not even fundamental scientific monographs. His legacy is people. Thousands of doctors, scientists, health managers, assistants and professors he personally noticed, supported, protected from the adversity of life and led to a big life. The villagers, who once came to Karaganda with one worn suitcase and a dream, became the pride of Kazakhstan’s science and practice. In each of them, Pyotr Moiseevich left a piece of his burning soul, unyielding faith in justice and the indisputable truth: “Medicine is a love of humanity,” the interlocutor concluded.

First place

Today, the university has more than nine thousand students in 79 bachelor, master, residency and doctoral programs. Karaganda Pyotr Pospelov Medical University provides multilevel training of specialists in bachelor’s, master’s, residency and doctoral programs. Training is conducted in the state, Russian and English languages. The employment rate of graduates is 97 per cent, and 95 per cent successfully pass an independent examination the first time.

The structure of the university includes seven schools, an international medical faculty, 24 departments, the Institute of Life Sciences, university and dental clinics, a library, a career development center and units responsible for international cooperation, digital development and artificial intelligence. The university employs 1,632 people, including scientific, pedagogical and medical specialists.

A special place in the practical training of future doctors is occupied by the center of simulation and educational technologies - the best center of this profile in Central Asia. His work has received international recognition as part of the ASPIRE initiative of the International Association for Medical Education AMEE for excellence in the application of simulation technologies. Modern equipment and educational methods allow to simulate various clinical situations, to practice professional skills and team interaction in a safe environment. Simulation training helps prepare students and healthcare professionals to make decisions in conditions as close as possible to real clinical practice.

The university is ranked 801-1000 in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings. According to this indicator, it ranks first among medical universities and fifth among all universities in Kazakhstan. The ranking assesses the contribution of universities to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Karaganda Pyotr Pospelov Medical University preserves the continuity of its historical school and at the same time develops a modern model of medical education.