S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy

The S. M. Kirov Military Medical Academy (Военно-медицинская академия имени С. М. Кирова) is the oldest school of military medicine in Saint Petersburg and the Russian Federation. Senior medical staff are trained for the Armed Forces and conduct research in military medical services.

The Imperial Medical and Surgical Academy was established in 1798 by Emperor Paul. The Neoclassical building was designed by Antonio Porta. It is decorated with a set of panel paintings by Giuseppe Bernasconi.

Sir James Wylie, a Scottish baronet, managed the academy between 1808 and 1838. His contributions have been commemorated with a monument which stood in front of the academy until the October Revolution. The monument was designed in 1859 by David Jensen. It was later relocated and replaced with a statue of Hygieia.

In the late 19th century, the academy's physiology laboratory, founded by Ivan Sechenov, was at the forefront of medical research. Ivan Romanovich Tarkhanov conducted some important experiments there.

The academy was also among the pioneers of medical education for women, launching the courses for nurse-midwives in 1872. Nadezhda Suslova, the first female physician in Russia, attended Sechenov's classes at the academy. A school of gymnastics (now the Military Institute of Physical Culture) was launched in 1909.

After Sergey Kirov's assassination in 1934, the academy received his name. Leon Orbeli led the academy through the Siege of Leningrad and the Second World War.

Late in 2011, minister of defense Anatoliy Serdyukov declared his intention to move the academy from the historical centre of Saint Petersburg to one of its suburbs. This decision was overturned after Serdyukov had been sacked.

By contemporary standards, it is a full-scale medical school complete with a network of teaching and research clinics and affiliated hospitals. Graduates are commissioned as officers with medical doctor credentials. The institution also provides advanced training for mid-career military medical doctors and trains graduate students on the Ph.D. level.