«We must do it for the Lucanians. It is an important challenge for our University, a challenge that we want to take up, which involves us and the regional body. We have a moral commitment and we must do our utmost not to disappoint the expectations of the Lucanians ». The rector of the University of Basilicata, Ignazio Marcello Mancini, is experiencing challenging and stimulating hours. The degree course in Medicine and Surgery, that dream awaited by generations of Lucanian aspiring doctors, is at a decisive turning point: by 13 January the University will have to send the documentation to the National Agency for the evaluation of the university system and on 15 January February the papers will land at the National University Council for the relative determinations. Between Christmas holidays and the pandemic, it is clear that the Lucanian University is racing against time.
To close everything by the deadline and start the new course of study, for 60 freshmen, with the academic year 2021-2022. A challenge for the new rector Mancini, elected only in September. A challenge that he is determined to win considering it “a moral commitment” towards the Lucanians. So between deadlines and documentation to be presented the work in the Lucanian University goes on, The last act is the establishment of the University Commission on the course in which professors Giovanni Salzano, Faustino Bisaccia, Fabrizio Caccavale, Nicola Cavallo, Claudio De Luca are part , Fabio Napolitano, Giuseppe Terrazzano, Carmen Izzo and Ermanno Trasatti. And so the project that aims to create the Faculty of Medicine takes shape.
In these weeks we work on the definition of the spaces to create classrooms and laboratories, we discuss the organic plant with the teachers to be identified and inserted, we plan the laboratories that will be used for the next years and discuss the interaction with the Lucanian health structures, starting with the “San Carlo” hospital in Potenza. In short, an overall project is being developed, which lacks some details that can be defined in the coming months and which will need the collaboration of the Region. “We have set up the University Commission for the establishment of the master’s degree course in Medicine and Surgery called to deal with the design of the course and a feasibility plan that adheres to reality in terms of costs – explains the rector Mancini – There are, then, ministerial deadlines to be met: one on 13 January with and the other on 15 February which are necessary for the establishment of the course. These are checks with Anvur that are more intense for the medical degree course, then the documentation goes to the national Cun which must make an assessment on the correctness of the project ». This is to arrive at the plan for the realization of the degree course in the academic year 2021 – 2022.
So, in about ten months. In the meantime, in the University of Basilicata, it is not only the plan of the classrooms and laboratories that is defined, but also the plan of the 18 teachers, including professors and researchers, who must be used for the first year. All obviously with a look at the accounts. Because the Lucanian dream of having the Faculty of Medicine is also the result of the economic commitment of the Ministry of University and Scientific Research, that of Health and the Basilicata Region. The initial dowry of the program is, in fact, 26 million euros. Two million for the first three years will be assigned by Miur, three million for the first three years will be given by the Ministry of Health while the Basilicata Region will assign three million in the first year and four million a year for the next two years. Money that, then, could increase when the Agreement, signed 12 years ago, which provided for 10 million euros to the University of Basilicata for its activities by the regional government, will be re-discussed. But this will be debated when the degree course in Medicine and Surgery is active. Now, however, it is still the time of the race to make it happen.
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