President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed Bill No. 13276 on mandatory military training under the medical service reserve officer training program for students of medical and pharmaceutical specialties. The law is planned to be implemented from 2026.
This became known from the draft law.
Previously, training in the reserve officer program was voluntary and was mostly undertaken by contract students. In total, almost 5% of medical and pharmaceutical students are trained as reserve medical service officers.
"One of the consequences of the full-scale war was the shortage of medical personnel in the army. Until 2022, such a large number of military doctors was not needed, so today the medical education system must adapt — in particular, by including elements of military training in educational programs," said the author of the bill, the MP from the "Servant of the People" party, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Health, Medical Care and Medical Insurance, Mykhailo Radutsky.
Currently, reserve medical service officers are trained at the departments of military medicine and disaster medicine in 10 out of 15 medical universities subordinate to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. There are 9 universities under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine that train doctors on a state order. However, only four of them have full-fledged military training units.
The draft law provides for the restoration or creation of new departments of military training in universities subordinate to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education and Science. It also includes the following provisions:
- to make military training mandatory for medical and pharmaceutical students who are fit for service;
- to oblige all medical and pharmaceutical universities, regardless of ownership, to provide this training;
- to grant the Ministry of Health the authority to coordinate the list of military accounting specialties and the scope of training within the medical and pharmaceutical fields.
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