Head of the Department Professor Svetlana Nikolaevna Mineeva

Address: Makhachkala, I. Shamil Av. 44

E-mail: min3eva.s@yandex.ru

The most important stage in a future specialist becoming who has arrived to us from abroad is the pre-university training carried out by our department.

The history of the Department of general education disciplines for foreign citizens roots down to 1986, when the orders of the Ministry of Higher Education of the USSR № 437 of 07.06.86 and the Ministry of Health of the RSFSR № 527 of 23.06.86 opened Preparatory Courses for foreign citizens at the Dagestan Medical Institute. The faculty was the third in the country, along with the Leningrad and Rostov Preparatory Courses at medical universities of the Russian Federation. To date, the faculty has extensive experience in the field of training foreign students.

Since its foundation, the department has been staffed by experienced teachers, candidates of sciences with long teaching experience.

At the origins of the faculty organization were the former rector of the DSMA, Professor A.M. Golubev, Associate Professor V.V. Danielyan and Associate Professor E.H. Bulach.

1. V. Danielyan was the first dean of the faculty for 13 years. From 1987 to 1989, the duties of the dean of the faculty were performed by Associate Professor E. Bulach, who simultaneously held the position of Vice-rector for International Relations.

From the day of its foundation to the present, the department is headed by the Honored Worker of the Higher School of the Russian Federation, Professor Svetlana Nikolaevna Mineeva, who is concurrently the secretary of the commission for the competitive election of the teaching staff of the Dagestan State Medical University. She started out as an assistant at the Department of Biology and Human Ecology at the university (a Medical Institute in those times).

From the time of its formation to the present, the staff of the department has been carrying out a lot of educational and methodological work on the preparation and publication of adapted textbooks, dictionaries, methodological developments in all disciplines of training. During the period of the department’s existence, textbooks were written and published, including all the program material: “Human Anatomy”, “Zoology”, “Manual on Medical Parasitology”, “Tropical Protozoology”, “Cytology”, “Genetics”, “Heredity and variability”, “Tropical helminthology”, “Basic concepts and laws of chemistry”, “Periodic Law and periodic system of D. I. Mendeleev”, “Mechanics”, “Electricity”, “Physics”, “Mathematics”, which are implemented in the educational process. Teachers compiled tables of scientific terms translated into English and Arabic, as well as Russian-English, Russian-Arabic dictionaries of terms, published two monographs and about 340 works of the curricular nature, including articles in the peer-reviewed journals of the HAC.

In recent years, the staff has prepared curricular 30 works, 1 monograph.

To date, professional training at the department is carried out by experienced specialists. Currently, the department has three sections. The biology section is headed by the head of the department, prof. S. N. Mineeva, the chemistry section is headed by the senior lecturer, PhD in Biology R. A. Magomedova, the physics section is headed by the senior lecturer A.M. Abdulatipov. For many years, the duties of a senior laboratory assistant have been faithfully performed by Z. M. Alibekova.

Currently, the department is working on the creation of uptodate educational and methodological support. The teachers of the department are developing a rating system for monitoring knowledge, new forms, methods for activating and improving the effectiveness of independent work of students, as well as giving significance to the teaching process. The department pays great attention to the introduction of new innovative forms of education into the educational process, solving problems related to the computerization of education, as well as professionally oriented training of foreign citizens. So, in particular, in teaching biology, priority is given to sections related to medicine: “Parasitology”, “Human Anatomy”, “Medical genetics”, etc.

Three classrooms for each discipline are equipped for the training sessions. The offices are equipped with state-of-the-art technology: multimedia projector, laptop, computer.

Two years ago, the department successfully underwent the audit. Employees have updated training and methodological complexes, including training programs in all disciplines: biology, chemistry, physics, fund of appraisal funds, methodical developments for each lesson, reflecting the requirements of the time.

Taking into account the contemporary context, we have rethought the traditional forms of organizing educational work with foreign citizens. Currently, this work consists in educating students in the spirit of internationalism, respect for our country, the republic, acculturation, as well as in environmental education through the subject.

Over the years of the department’s existence, citizens from India, Syria, Palestine, Nepal, Yemen, Israel, Afghanistan, Congo, Sri Lanka, Mali, Nigeria and other countries, more than 2000 people, have received pre-university training. Currently, students from Palestine, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, India and other African countries are studying at the faculty.

In the 2016 academic year, our faculty was included in the list of federal state educational organizations that received the right to train foreign students at the expense of budget allocations from the federal funding. This will certainly contribute to a significant replenishment of the faculty with foreign students and will intensify the activities of the department.

The pre-university training of foreign students by our department is the first step in terms of their adaptation to the new environment and preparation for the study of basic medical disciplines, and therefore the department is included in the unified process of forming a highly professional medical specialist for foreign countries.