Studying Medicine in Bulgaria: My View on My Professors (2018 Archive)

Editorial note: this post dates from my time as a student

Before we begin, some context: I wrote this text on 13 January 2018. At that point I was a dentistry student at the Medical University of Sofia and had written down on my private blog what readers were asking me again and again at the time.

• Written: 13 January 2018 in Sofia, Bulgaria
• Author at the time: Marcel Kloos, dentistry student (started 2015)
• First published: marcel-in-bulgarien.de
• Published here: 14 August 2026 in the Medschool Experts guide

The substance of the post is unchanged. I have only smoothed out the language and added a perspective from today at the end. It describes my personal perception as a student.

My view on my professors

The question of what the professors are like has been put to me more and more often recently. So here is a post about the quality of teaching and my experience on the medical programme at the university in Sofia.

Ten students per professor

Our relationship with our professors here is very close, because we are taught in groups of around ten students per professor or assistant professor. We sit in a seminar room where everyone gets their turn and where there is room for every question.

You can reach the teaching staff

That means you can approach a professor here during a break without any difficulty to ask questions. Some professors even hand out their mobile numbers. So there is more than enough opportunity for individual questions; you just have to use it.

The contact is personal

As at every university and on every programme, there are professors with whom you build a particularly good rapport, and others you have less to do with in day-to-day study. What is special here is certainly that small groups give you intensive contact with the teaching staff.

So much for the professors on the medical programme in Sofia.

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My perspective eight years later

I completed my degree with the state examination in 2021 and have since guided more than 500 students in choosing where to study. Three things are clearer to me today than they were then.

Small groups are the real advantage of studying abroad

What I described in 2018 rather in passing is in truth the strongest argument for studying medicine abroad: seminar groups of eight to twelve students, oral examinations and early patient contact. That applies not only to Sofia but equally to locations such as Foča, Varna or Niš. Anyone who has to speak and argue for themselves every week understands the material faster and retains it longer.

Personal contact with teaching staff carries you through the programme

In a group of ten, the teacher knows your name, where you stand and what your strengths are. That is a motivation to arrive well prepared, and it makes oral examinations predictable. That is exactly what helped me through the demanding semesters.

In the end it is the individual department that decides

My experience was very positive, but it was mine. Every subject has its own character and its own organisation. Anyone choosing a location today should therefore speak to students who are currently in the clinical phase there and form their own picture.