The history of the department of propaedeutics of internal diseases is closely intertwined with the history of the medical faculty of Uzhhorod national university. It was founded in 1946 concurrent with the medical faculty opening. Being the fundamental department of the faculty, it gets the student into the therapeutic clinic gradually and teaches him Diagnostics and Semiotics as a separate divisions of the science. On these grounds it begins to form a clinical thinking of the future doctors and teaches the medical students typical internal diseases.

In 1948 Vasyl Mykolaevych Slyshko held the department of propaedeutics of internal diseases and he was the head of the department from 1948 to 1957. Together with the professor Oleksandr Vasylyovych Fedynets professor V.M. Slyshko dealt with endemic disease investigation in Zakarpattya – thyroid disease. He also organized the planned goiter disease control in Zakarpattya and held the salt iodization preventive services especially in mountain areas of the region.

The professor Myron Samuilovych Turkeltaub accepted office at the department after the professor V.M. Slyshko. He came from Odessa Medical Institute and was holding the chair from 1957 to 1975. He is one of the founders of culturology as a science in our region. He had lots of the scientific followers who were at work upon mineral water in Zakarpattya and became the lecturers at different departments of the faculty.

The follower of the professor Turkeltaub the professor Svitlana Ivanivna Pashchenko was holding the chair from 1975 to 1981.She was a phthisiologist and dealt with the tuberculosis epidemiology in Zakarpattya.

The other follower of the professor M.S. Turkeltaub – the professor Oksana Mykolaiivna Hanych took the office at the department in 1981.  Being a gastroenterologist by profession the professor O.M. Hanych founded a famous all over Ukraine school of gastroenterologists in Zakarpattya. She also organized a SRI of phytotherapy by the department at Uzhhorod state university that she has been heading till present. As an advisor the professor O.M. Hanych prepared 5 Doctors of Sciences and 14 Candidates of Sciences. 

On July 3, 1997 the department was taken by the follower of the professor O.M. Hanych and the Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR O.M. Uholev – the professor Emilia Iosypivna Arkhiy. She continued to enrich the pedagogic and scientific traditions of the department as a division of the school of gastroenterologists in Zakarpattya and a famous scientific centre of the non-traditional treatment modalities as well as the investigation of the endo-exo ecology of a human. One doctorate dissertation and five candidate’s dissertations were defended under the charge of the professor E.I. Arkhiy, two more doctorate dissertations are in the process of preparation.

One candidate’s dissertation was defended under the charge of the professor L.T. Siksai.

4 professors, doctors of medical sciences, 5 assistant professors, candidates of medical sciences are working at the department of propaedeutics of internal diseases at present. The professors are: O.M. Hanych, E.I. Arkhiy. L.T. Siksai, E.S. Sirchak; the assistant professors: M.A. Derbak, V.Yu. Koval, L.A. Kotsyubyak, O,M, Moskal, V.V. Bondarenko; 5 post-graduates, 3 external doctorate candidates and 1 senior laboratory assistance.

Teaching and guiding are fruitfully managed at the department. Besides, the department gives full attention to the students’ youth attitude development. The methodical guidelines that include formative and summative modular assessments of the third year students’ knowledge in the form of “Step-1” and the tasks in the form of “Step-2” have been published in each division of the internal diseases. The methodological recommendations of the tests and situational questions to all the practical topics have been also published in accordance with the requirements of the Bologna system as well as the working programs for the third-year students of the medical faculty for the discipline of propaedeutics of internal diseases (90 hours of practicals), nursing practice (30 hours) and medical attendance for the second year students (40 hours) that enable to unify the teaching and learning activities. Besides, the guidance papers have been established in the courses of valeology and child welfare, the fundamentals of medicine and laboratory diagnostics (blood analysis, urinalysis, biochemical predictors of the laboratory syndromes by the chronic liver diseases and  the marker diagnostics of the viral hepatitis), as well as EKG diagnosis.

Besides, a lot of methodological recommendations about the preventive and curative interventions have been established at the department for the practical medicine (students and doctors) in diagnostics and the treatment of the helicobacteritic depended abnormalities and dysbacteriosis, chronic viral hepatitis, diffuse hepatic disorders of different aetiology and other gastroenterological abnormalities. The methodological recommendations also contain alternative schemes and non-traditional treatments as well as calorie restriction diet.

The new working programs in the disciplines teaching by the academicians of the department are established according to the requirements of the Bologna educational system. .

The lecturers of the department have published three study guides classified by the Ministry of Health Care and the Ministry of Education and Sciences of Ukraine.

1. Архій Е.Й., Сірчак Є.С., Москаль О.М. Навчально-методичний посібник «Основи медсестринського догляду за терапевтичними хворими» - Ужгород: 2010. – 256 с.
2. Сірчак Є.С., Вайс В.М. Навчально-методичний посібник «Основи лабораторної діагностики» - Ужгород: 2010. – 174 с.
3. Архій Е.Й., Москаль О.М., Сірчак Є.С., Коваль В.Ю., Дербак М.А. Розумик Н.В. Навчальний посібник. “Пропедевтика внутрішніх хвороб. Практикум. в 3-ьох ч.”: В-во Говерла. - Ужгород. -2012. - 554 с.