On February 3, 2023, a special two-week online program for the senior medical students of the Poltava State Medical University "1st Winter Academy "Infections and Immunity" Essen-Poltava" was finished. It was launched by the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) in the partnership with our university. For two weeks, 5th-year higher education students not only listened to lectures on infectious diseases, immunology and HIV/AIDS from the world-class researchers of the University of Duisburg-Essen, but also discussed them lively. Lectures were given by the Director of the Institute of Virology of UDE, Prof. Dr. Ulf Dittmer, employees of the Institute of Virology, Dr. Gennadiy Zelinskyy, Dr. Kathrin Sutter, Prof. Dr. Mirko Trilling, Dr. Wibke Bayer, as well as Prof. Dr. Karl Lang from the Institute of Immunology of UDE, Dr. Christina Karsten from the Institute of Translational HIV Research, UDE, Dr. Frank Mozel from the Institute of Medical Microbiology, UDE, Director of the School of Biomedical Sciences Prof. Dr. Sven Brandau, Prof. Dr. Matthias Günzer from the Institute of Experimental Immunology and Medical Imaging. At the end of the program, the PSMU students expressed their thanks by performing the song "Oi u luzi chervona kalyna". And this became an unexpected gift and a manifestation of deep gratitude to our partner university.
Such international events promote cooperation between universities, help evaluate European standards in action and familiarize students with the best advanced achievements in the field of science and education, plan the exchange of teachers and students, establish new scientific ties, which in turn will contribute to improving the training of future highly qualified medical doctors.
Feedback from the program participant Sofiko Alania:
"The winter school was an interesting experience and a good chance to broaden my knowledge not as a clinician, but as a researcher.
Yes, it was challenging to participate in such a large-scale English-language conference for the first time. Yes, the students were nervous because of possible misunderstandings and difficulty in using English, but after a few classes it went away. It was also nice to improve my skills in using international communications. The professors of the University of Essen made a lot of effort so that the lectures were not too difficult to understand and tried to explain the details of the presenting material in simple words. It is one thing to read manuals from the university, and quite another to hear the well-founded opinion of the researchers who have studied immunity all their lives and can answer your questions in live. I am incredibly grateful to our new German friends, that they are sharing advanced knowledge with the students of PSMU on their own initiative. It is not every day that you are given the opportunity to be immersed into the novel experimental data and see incredible images directly under the microscope.”