Maryna Mrouga- reformer of the week
Maryna Mrouga, a deputy head of the Health Ministry’s testing board, is reformer of the week for seeking to improve the quality of medical education in Ukraine.
Mrouga has worked in the field for about 20 years. Among the main problems Ukraine’s medical education faces, she says, is a shortage of international textbooks and scientific journals, and faculty members’ poor knowledge of English.
In order to solve these problems, Mrouga and her team in 1999 introduced national standard medical licensing exams in Ukraine’s medical schools. These not only assess the competence of individual students, but allow schools in Ukraine to be compared.
This has led to some notable success. Over the years, some medical schools have closed, and some universities have canceled their medicine programs because they were uncompetitive.
With the schools at the bottom of the class closing down, the overall quality of the medical education system in Ukraine has improved. On May 12, Ukrainian medical students will for the first time ever take an international comparative examination to compare their skills with fellow students around the globe.
The so-called “International Foundations of Medicine” exam measures two things: clinical knowledge and basic science knowledge. This examination was developed by a U.S. organization that sets state-recognized examinations for medical students in the United States.
– Isabel Lerch
Tetiana Chornovol – anti-reformer of the week
Tetiana Chornovol, a lawmaker from the People’s Front party, authored controversial amendments to crack down on anti-corruption activists and investigative journalists. The amendments were signed into law on March 27.
Chornovol has followed the path from anti-corruption activist and journalist to a controversial politician allying herself on key votes with the very associates of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych she used to criticize, and with other lawmakers accused of graft.
At the same time, she has aggressively attacked many anti-corruption activists, lawmakers and reformers, accusing them of graft and labeling them as agents of the Kremlin, Yanukovych and his allies.
Chornovol is a close confidante of Serhiy Pashynsky, who has been investigated over alleged embezzlement of oil products and is accused of illegally seizing the Zhytomyr Confectionary, which he denies. In 2016, Chornovol got into the car of an anti-Pashynsky activist during a protest against him at the parliament, and refused to get out.
Meanwhile, Chornovol has flip-flopped on the blockade of trade with Russian-occupied territories several times, in line with the government’s policy. She went from supporting it in 2014 to vehemently opposing the activists’ blockade in early 2017, to backing it again when President Petro Poroshenko sanctioned it on March 15.
Chornovol also used to be a member of the UNA-UNSO far-right group and the Azov Battalion military unit, which also has ties to the far right.
— Oleg Sukhov
