Moment from the Graduation Ceremony / Photo by Ugnius Bagdonavičius
In 2026, 130 graduates successfully completed their studies at the Faculty of Medicine of Vilnius University! Diplomas were awarded to the graduates, master's and integrated studies programs during the official ceremony held in the Church of St. Johns.
A total of 121 graduates completed integrated studies in English:
- 98 in the Medicine Study Programme;
- 23 in the Dentistry Study Programme.
9 graduates completed the Master's degree programme in Systems Biology.
During the ceremony, Lauri Ilmari Toivari, the representative of the Medicine study programme, former member of the Student Representation and former member of the Faculty of Medicine Council gave a speech and and highlighted the challenges they overcame during their studies and expressed their gratitude to the faculty members who trained and prepared them for their future careers as physicians.
"We began this journey in the shadow of a pandemic. Some of us took our very first lectures online, sitting alone in bedrooms, staring at screens where there should have been faces. We learned to examine patients at a time when touching a stranger's hand required courage. We walked into hospitals as students while those hospitals were in crisis — and we witnessed something that changed us forever. We watched our mentors stand in the storm, exhausted and afraid and still showing up, still choosing their patients over everything else. That image is burned into me and I think it is burned into all of us.
We did not just learn medicine during those years. We learned what medicine is. It is not a profession. It is a promise. A promise made in the quiet, terrifying moment when a person who is suffering looks at you — a stranger — and decides to trust you with the most precious thing they have. Their body. Their fear. Their life. Even when they are angry, or scared, or have lost hope. And here is what moves me most: knowing that we will each receive that trust — thousands of times, over the course of our lives — and that every single one of us in this room has already decided, long before today, that we will honour it.“, said L. I. Toivari.
Ad maiora – our sincere congratulations to all the graduates!
Photo album from diploma awarding ceremony (photographer Ugnius Bagdonavičius).