History | Fakulta zdravotníctva a sociálnej práce

Our faculty is true to values, has respect for traditions and is open to new challenges.

Faculty mission

Our faculty represents a unique composition of mutually cooperating human sciences. We deal with a healthy person, but also diseased, people in need and people with social problems, both at the individual level, but also at family, community and society level.
We are a respected educational institution, which follows the historical traditions of Trnava University established in 1635 and it is our duty not only to fulfil the educational and research task but also as an academic institution to fulfil our mission in the social, cultural and moral field.
We bring new scientific knowledge based on our research and so we are achieving international acceptance. The acquired scientific results are then applied to teaching in accredited study programs. Owing to our excellent outcomes in science and research is our faculty repeatedly taking the first place in the ranking list of the best health and social faculties in Slovakia.
Our merit is not only our extensive international educational and scientific cooperation, but also our workplace in Africa (Kenya – Kwale). However, these African workplaces (South Sudan, Kenya), in which we operate, are important not only from the professional point of view but they are also in accordance with our principles and values - profoundly humanitarian.
Due to the constant attention that we have paid to the improvement of studies at our faculty, the Trnava University has been awarded the prestigious ECTS Label and DS Label diplomas, therefore our graduates can easily find their work and also be internationally successful.

VISIONS

Our aim is to continue in taking place amongst the prestigious health and social faculties and to be a respected and scientific authority in all of our fields, not only within Slovakia, but also internationally.
We want to be an internationally active faculty (including the possibility to study at our faculty in English) and an internationally accepted faculty.
We want our graduates to be in demand on the international labour market and our diploma to be highly respected not only within the Slovak Republic, but also internationally – thanks to their knowledge, skills and their scientific competence as well.

OUR SHARED VALUES

We recognize humanistic principles, respect for human dignity, respect for humanity “without adjectives”.
We recognize Christian values, such as solidarity, common good, altruism, and follow the best traditions of European thinking, philosophy and culture.
As a faculty, in accordance with the historical mission of universities, we recognize the value of free searching for and finding the truth, both by teachers and students. Our university is modern, but at the same time, we respect and preserve the academic traditions.

HISTORY OF THE FACULTY OF HEALTH CARE AND SOCIAL WORK

Faculty of Health Care and Social Work (FZaSP) - Facultas artis aegrotos curandi et operum socialium - follows the Christian and humanistic legacy of the historical Trnava University (1635-1777) and particularly the tradition of its Faculty of Medicine, which was active within Trnava University in the 18^th century.

At the renewed Trnava University (TU), the issue of social and health care was classified as Medical department of the Faculty of Humanities (TU), at which subjects such as nursing care, social work and public health (back then called Preventive medicine) began to be taught.

Faculty of Health Care and Social Work (FZaSP) was the first faculty in Slovakia that began the era of higher education in health care and social work fields of study.

On June 22, 1994, the Academic Senate of TU established the Faculty of Nursing and Social Work as the third faculty of TU. During the first accreditation in 1994, the faculty was qualified to open these fields of study: Public Health, Social Work and Nursing, and since 1 January 1996 also Laboratory Testing Methods in Health Care (back then called Laboratory Medicine) and Rehabilitation (The last graduates of this study field completed the study in 2007). In May 1998, the Ministry of Education agreed to change the name of faculty to its current name Fakulta zdravotníctva a sociálnej práce (FZaSP, Faculty of Health Care and Social Work). In the same year, the University Hospital in Trnava was established.

The faculty´s key personalities were at that time mainly: doc. MUDr. Vladimír Krčméry, DrSc., prof. MUDr. Ladislav Šoltés, DrSc., prof. MUDr. Milan Schnorrer, DrSc., prof. MUDr. Imrich Hatiar, CSc., doc. RNDr. Ján Jakubík, CSc., doc. MUDr. Štefan Kopecký, PhD., prof. PhDr. Alžbeta Mrázová, PhD., prof. PhDr. Dana Farkašová, CSc., prof. MUDr. Margaréta Schultzová, CSc., prof. MUDr. Karol Bošmanský SVD, CSc., prof. MUDr. Jozef Pogády, DrSc., prof. MUDr. Vladimír Milovský, CSc., prof. MUDr. Bohumil Chmelík, PhD. and many more.

Until 2002 resided the faculty in the building of TU on Hornopotočná Street. That same year was completed the reconstruction of the Medicine Faculty´s historic building on the University Square, which has been the seat of the FZaSP until now. Teaching takes place also in a building, which belongs to the complex of buildings of the historical TU, called Adalbertinum – it was originally called Konvinkt sv. Vojtecha (Adalberta) and it was intended for the poor students. This building, Adalbertina, became the property of TU again on 1 January 2017 and will be further completely renovated for teaching and research purposes.

Since the beginning has been the FZaSP developing its international relations with foreign universities. In 1994, the faculty signed the first international agreements with the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, the Jesuit University of Scranton in the USA, and cooperates with the University of Ostrava in Ostrava and the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice (since the 1990s up to now). In the following years, the individual departments developed their own international liaisons and cooperation. Currently has the faculty working contacts, mainly within Erasmus+ scheme, with 29 universities in Europe and is organizing educational exchanges for both students and teachers. International relations are also developing under bilateral agreements and international research and development projects. More than 100 foreign visits to more than 20 countries of the world are made every year. From the beginning, international conferences and professional events began to be held at our faculty – for example: in 2016 took place the 16th conference called OCHRANA ŽIVOTA (LIFE PRESERVATION), 4 international conferences on social work of ERIS (European Research Institute of Social work) were held and every year there is interdisciplinary symposium on Diseases of affluence etc.

FZaSP has become a well-known faculty mainly for its activities in developing countries. The main aim is to provide health, social and educational help to the most vulnerable groups of inhabitants in countries such as Kenya, South Sudan and Cambodia. Our faculty began with its development projects in 1998 on the African continent in the slums of Kenya´s capital city Nairobi. In 2001, the faculty extended its activities to South Sudan, where we reconstructed and modernized the field hospital, so its equipment meets the standards of a hospital. We began to provide health care for approximately 200, 000 inhabitants of the catchment area. Since 2003, the faculty has also launched projects in Asia, namely in Cambodia´s town called Phnom Penh, focusing on social work services for HIV positive children. In 2010, the faculty moved its development activities in Kenya from Nairobi to the Kwale county, where it is with its detached workplace participating on improving the availability of high quality social and health care, reducing malnutrition and organizing educational and preventive activities. All of the faculty´s activities for the target groups are carried out in the spirit of humanistic values and tolerance without any discrimination and we can say that many aspects of people´s lives have been already significantly improved by its implemented projects and activities.

This faculty is a member of “Association of Educators in Health Care Branches in Slovakia”, moreover it has become (since the current Dean of the faculty was elected as its chairman) the seat of this Association.

The literature on the faculty´s history: Dejiny Trnavskej univerzity 1635 – 1777, 1992 – 2010, Typi Universitatis Tyrnaviensis, Trnava 2010