Medicinska fakulteta Univerze v Ljubljani 1919–1945 - Univerza v ...

in October 1921, emphasizing that although there is a Faculty of
Medicine in Ljubljana, it only has four semesters and Ljubljana
students will have to continue their study after the first final
exams at other universities, which would impose a heavy social
burden on them� He asked the minister to intervene with the
government so as to open at least the third year� Šerko opposed
the aspiration to have only two medical faculties in the State of
SCS, in Zagreb and Belgrade, and rejected the idea of integrating
the Ljubljana Medical Faculty with the one in Zagreb� He
demanded a solution that would meet national requirements as
well as the state’s interests� He continued fighting for a complete
Medical Faculty in the 1924/25 academic year by sending a
memorandum to the education minister in Belgrade and the
university rector, demanding the opening of a fifth semester on
the grounds that examinations of the second part of the first final
exam were normally taken in the fifth semester� This demand was
supported by the current rector Dr Karel Hinterlechner in his
article published in Ljubljanski Zvon�
Development in the Second Decade and
Faculty Expansion with the Third Year
In its second decade, studies at the Faculty of Medicine continued
to consist of the first four semesters as stipulated in the act on
establishing the university in Ljubljana, which covered lectures
in biology, physics, chemistry, anatomy, histology, embriology
and physiology� Over time, the faculty reinforced its staffing�
From 1930 onward, Valentina Grošelj-Kobe trained with
Professor Plečnik as his assistant prosector� In 1938, she became
an assistant professor at the Anatomical Institute and took over
lectures in topographical anatomy� Dr Milan Capuder joined the
faculty in 1935, first as a trainee assistant and after passing the
state examination at the University of Belgrade as an assistant
at the Anatomical Institute� After Professor Plečnik’s death in
December 1940, by then an assistant professor, he took charge
of the Anatomical Institute� Ladislav Klinc taught chemistry as
a private assistant professor from the winter semester of 1931
onward, became an assistant professor of organic chemistry in
1935 and an associate professor in 1939�
Professor Alija Košir was appointed associate professor in 1935
and full professor of histology in 1939� His assistant between 1930
and 1937 was Dr Hubert Pehani, who was appointed assistant
professor of histology and embriology in 1937� Professor Albin
Seliškar was promoted to associate and full professor in 1939 and
August 1945, respectively�
Dr Pavel Grošelj refused his nomination as associate professor
in 1931 for financial reasons and stayed a secondary school and
university teacher for the rest of his life� His death in 1940 raised
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the issue of his successor� The faculty at first offered to employ Dr
Boris Zarnik, full professor of biology, histology and embriology
at the Zagreb Faculty of Medicine, who accepted and taught
biology in Ljubljana for one year� Further collaboration was
prevented by the war� After that, the faculty entrusted the biology
lectures and the management of the Biological Institute to Dr
Hubert Pehani�
With his rounded personality and professional dedication,
Professor Janez Plečnik felt that his young Medical Faculty
students should also gain knowledge about the tradition of
medicine, its roots, philosophical foundations and historical
background, and needed to understand the course of the history
of medicine� It was his idea and initiative to introduce the history
of medicine as a subject at the faculty� In 1934, the Faculty Council
of the Medical Faculty, while aware that the faculty only had four
semesters and had long been threatened to be abolished, added
the new subject to the curriculum and assigned it to Ivan Pintar
along with the post of part-time lecturer, who became a private
assistant professor in 1939� Dr Ivan Matko, chief physician at the
state hospital in Ljubljana, was a part-time lecturer in internal
propaedeutics from 1936 until his death in 1939� Dr Božidar
Lavrič became a part-time lecturer in surgical propaedeutics in
1936 and in 1938 he was tenured as a private assistant professor
of topographical anatomy, read by third-semester students�
On 28 June 1930, a new Act on Universities was passed, applicable
to all Yugoslav universities, which in Article 51 preserved the
Ljubljana Medical Faculty with only four semesters� Numerous
interventions by Professor Šerko, then rector of the Ljubljana
University, and Dean Kansky in the highest forums were in vain;
the ministry even threatened to lower the faculty’s credits� This also
sparked off mass student demonstrations between 1931 and 1933,
featuring mostly technical and medical students led by left-wing
students, where they expressed, among other things, a demand for
an integral university and protest against the university act and
the new medical decree� In 1932, the Faculty Council approved
the draft faculty decree of the Ljubljana Medical Faculty which
had been formulated in 1931 in agreement with the Belgrade and
Zagreb faculties� It provided for a complete Faculty of Medicine
and also laid down some student restrictions regarding the order
of taking examinations�
Once the university act and general university decree were passed
in 1934, the struggle for the Faculty of Medicine’s completion
intensified� A demand for the establishment of a fifth semester
was voiced at Faculty Council meetings in 1934 and, the next
year, also a demand for the classification of the posts of part-time
lecturers in pathology, internal and surgical propaedeutics and
oncology, which were required for the fifth semester� The early
movement for the completion of the faculty initiated by students