The Zaragoza’s University has planned initiate the reform of the Faculty of Medicine in June 2024 and start the works by building B. This building, which houses classrooms and offices in addition to the library, newspaper library and simulation room, among other facilities, is projected to gain “some more space”, as explained by the dean, Javier Lanuza. It will be the new star performance on the public campus, with an execution period of a year and a half, after the intervention in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters.
This is the calendar managed by the University of Zaragoza, which has set up a work commission together with the Technical Unit for Construction and Energy to define future uses and facilities which they hope to finalize before the end of the year. The first phase of the rehabilitation of Medicine already has a budget assigned in the framework agreement between the Aragonese Government and the academic entity of €9.25 million.
The state of the facilities, with half a century old (as construction was completed in 1973 and classes began in 1975), they were long overdue for renovation. “Building A, which was the first to be occupied, is designed for a different type of teaching and we have very large classrooms for up to 200 students. There are no longer departments that used to occupy many spaces and new ones have emerged,” he explained. Furthermore, he added, “there are deck problems and the isolatesand questions of energy efficiency and accessibility that cannot be undertaken in the current situation”.
As has already happened with the students of Philosophy and Letters, when the work begins lMost of the students will move to the old Faculty of Education and to the modular building located behind it.
The Dean of Medicine advanced that the performance in building Awhich will be undertaken in a second phase, expected “more complicated”, since there are “laboratories and rooms dedicated to research that are much more difficult to move and relocate”. This building houses, among other services and rooms, the general administration of the faculty, the newspaper library, the computer room and the departments of preclinical subjects that require laboratories in addition to the microscopy and anatomy dissection rooms.
Solutions to the lack of doctors
On the possibility that the Faculty of Medicine increase the current 180 places by 10%his dean opined that this increase is “theoretically acceptable if the resources exist to increase the internship groups and the clinical teaching staff for the internships from the fifth”. It would mean 22 more students. The rector, Jose Antonio Mayoralalready said that it is necessary to see what the cost is due to the greater need for teachers and also what services could receive their training.
In addition, Lanuza considered that it is a “long-term solution, 12 years ahead” to the lack of doctors and that there are “other factors” to take into account, especially the bottleneck of mir (resident medical interns). “It is not just creating more students, but also that the number of mir places is more balanced, something that has been done for only two years, and that formulas are articulated to retain the loyalty of students who are finishing so that they stay here and it won’t be easier or better for them to go abroad,” he concluded.
San Jorge requests a degree in Medicine with 100 places
The Saint George University (USJ) has already submitted to the Ministry of Science, University and Knowledge Society the application to implement the Medicine career. Finally, according to sources from the private campus, the document includes the formation of 100 optional each course.
This is the first step in an administrative process that usually takes two years on average. The following will be the issuance of a report by the General Directorate of Universities, which, if it is favorable, will allow the preparation of the initial document to begin, which will include the objectives, competencies and structure of the study plan.
The intention is that this new degree has its own building on campus of Villanueva de Gallego, where the last extension was inaugurated last year to accommodate the School of Architecture and Technology. Next academic year, the USJ will expand the places it offers in Nursing, Physiotherapy, Biomedicine and Psychology by 10%. All of them finished this year’s admission process with a waiting list.