The history of the Medicine and Surgery degree program in Cagliari

The Degree Program in Medicine and Surgery, like all other degree programs at the University of Cagliari, is located in an insular geographical and cultural context that has determined the need to promote the cultural and professional development of the population residing in Sardinia since the early 17th century. The University of Cagliari was founded at the beginning of the 17th century and modeled on Spanish universities, thus overcoming the limitations that forced young Sardinians to attend other universities either abroad (Salamanca and Zaragoza) or on the Italian peninsula (Pisa, Bologna, and Siena). From the outset, the “Studio Generale” of Cagliari had four teaching colleges (later named faculties): Theology, Law, Medicine, Philosophy, and Arts. In the second half of the 18th century, Carlo Emanuele III of Savoy also founded a School of Surgery in Cagliari, which was entrusted to the renowned Prof. Michele Plazza of the University of Turin. In 1764, the “Constitutions of His Majesty for the University of Cagliari” were issued, assigning four chairs to the Faculty of Medicine and two chairs to the School of Surgery. In 1822, the School of Surgery became the Faculty of Surgery, at the behest of Carlo Felice. In 1857, the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Surgery, which were still separate, merged to form the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. Until 1980, the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery was completely identified with the degree program in Medicine and Surgery.

The Degree Program in Medicine and Surgery today

The degree program in Medicine and Surgery has gradually adapted to various Italian and European government/ministerial directives. The degree program aims to train doctors to European professional standards with a biomedical-psychosocial culture, who possess a multidisciplinary and integrated view of the most common health and disease issues. Doctors must have an education focused on the community, the local area, gender issues, disease prevention, health promotion, and a humanistic culture in its medical aspects. This specific mission responds more adequately to new healthcare and health needs, as it focuses not only on disease but above all on the healthy or sick individual, considered in their entirety of body and mind and placed in their social context, with the ultimate goal of knowing how to treat and care for the patient. Medical training oriented in this way is the first segment of an education that must continue over time and accompany the physician throughout their career. With this in mind, the knowledge that new graduates must have at the initial stage has been calibrated, giving due importance to epidemiology, self-learning, according to the principles of evidence-based medicine, and clinical methodology applied to the individual patient, based on experience not only in the hospital but also in the community, in order to develop clinical reasoning and a culture of prevention. The importance of research is highlighted through lectures and internships based on the latest scientific evidence.

The degree program in Medicine and Surgery is structured as a single-cycle Master's degree lasting six years, and admission is based on a single national ranking, as established by Ministerial Decree No. 418 of May 30, 2025.

Graduates can work as doctors and surgeons in various clinical, healthcare, and biomedical roles and fields, can practice as general practitioners (after completing a three-year specific training course in General Medicine), can enter Specialization Schools in various branches of Medicine and Surgery, PhD programs and second-level master's degrees, and can engage in research activities in all areas of biomedicine.

In order to achieve the educational objectives, the current single-cycle Master's Degree Program requires the completion of 360 university credits (harmoniously distributed over the 6 years of the course to allow for real integration between all basic and core subjects. The training program is divided into semesters. The basic preclinical sciences, covered in the early years, provide knowledge of the biological sciences and biological complexity aimed at understanding the structure and function of the human organism under normal conditions, for the purpose of maintaining health. At least 60 credits are professionalizing, to be acquired through training activities distributed throughout the educational path, through integrated courses, and focused specifically on clinical and methodological medical practice, through extensive use of internships. Teaching, based on the application of the pedagogical rule of ‘knowing how to be’ a doctor as well as ‘knowing’ and ‘knowing how to do’, enables students to ‘learn how to learn’ in order to embark on a process of knowledge that will accompany them, as surgeons, throughout their lives, in line with the most modern dictates of continuing medical education. Practical-assessment internships (pursuant to Ministerial Decree no. 58 of May 9, 2018, and subsequent Prime Ministerial Decrees and Ministerial Decrees) are included in the sixth year of the course. They consist of three periods of attendance by students supervised by one or more tutors, each lasting 100 hours, to be carried out in the fields of medicine, surgery, and general medicine. The Practical Assessment Internships will enable students to graduate with the professional training completed before graduation, thus shortening the qualification process. The Master's Degree in Medicine and Surgery will allow students, through the qualification obtained in the practical-assessment internships, to qualify for the profession of Medical Surgeon, with consequent registration in the Order of Medical Surgeons and Dentists, necessary for subsequent enrollment in a Specialization School or Specific Training Course in General Medicine.