The Medical University of Silesia (SUM) celebrates its 70th anniversary. The Regulation establishing the Medical Academy with the Faculty of Medicine and the Dental Department in Bytom was issued by the Council of Ministers on March 20, 1948. It was then the eighth medical school in Poland.

In 1949, the university was renamed the Silesian Medical Academy. Since 2007, it has been operating under the name of the Silesian Medical University in Katowice.

The beginnings – in the opinion of the Rector of SUM Prof. Przemysław Jałowiecki- were not easy. “Among medical schools with long tradition, we were named with the sarcasm as the” nursery school”, but future showed that the pejorative term turned out to be completely groundless” – recalled the rector.

SUM conducts studies in 25 fields – including 9 in English. It educates over 10,000 students, including 500 foreigners from 48 countries. For 70 years, over 40,000 students graduated from the SUM – also from the USA, Canada, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.