The Purkyně Military Medical Academy has been a long-term educational and scientific centre of the Czech Army Medical Service. There has been a very long history of systematic education of military medical personnel in our country. Its beginnings lie, as in many European countries, in the 18th century (1776 – Six-month courses at the Garrison Hospital in Gumpendorf near Vienna, 1785 – Military Medical (Surgical) Academy named the Josephinum).

A number of renowned physicians of Czech origin significantly contributed to nearly 90 years of the school´s history.

The basic element of career military physician training was represented by the Military Medical School (1926).

The development of the Czechoslovak Military Medical Service in our country was interrupted by the Second World War. Physicians and medical students participated in foreign and domestic resistance, the largest number of them were concentrated in England. They graduated from Oxford University. The Czechoslovak Military Hospital was created at London Hammersmith Hospital. A few courses of the Medical and Pharmaceutical Reserve Officer School were taught in Leamington and Walton-on-the-Naze where the Czechoslovak Brigade´s out-patients´ department was situated.

In 1945 – the Military Medical School in Prague was renowned.

In 1951 a new period began in the development of the Czechoslovak military medical educational system. This period has been permanently connected with Hradec Králové for 55 years. Rapid establishment of the Military Medical Academy (MMA) was possible only due to the fact that it was built on the basis of being a theoretical and clinical part of the Faculty of Medicine – a branch of Charles University established in 1945.

Beginning in 1958 and for the next 30 years the military medical system was transformed into the form of the Purkyně Military Medical Research and Postgraduate Institute.

In 1988 the school changed its name to the Purkyně Military Medical Academy which, institutionally, reflects more precisely the wide variety of its activities.

In November 1989, the school entered a qualitatively new period of development. It has passed through a transformation which has basically changed some military-professional teaching programmes, the organizational structure of the school, personnel support, the composition of the educational staff and so on.

The Academy has been included in the new university educational system and since 1993 (origin of the Czech Republic) has served as a training centre for Czech Army medical professionals. It has trained nearly 2600 military surgeons, dentists, and pharmacists till now.

COL Assoc. Prof. Roman Prymula, M.D., CSc., Ph.D. has been elected the new Rector of the Purkyně Military Medical Academy. He officially assumed this position on October 1, 2002.

One of the most important preconditions of transformation of the Czech Republic Army to the fully professional system, is a reorganization of military school system. In the year 2004, merital changes were done in this area. On the basis of amalgamation of the Military School of Ground Forces in Vyškov, the Military Academy in Brno and the Purkyně Military Medical Academy in Hradec Králové there was established the University of Defence in Brno. It comprises three faculties – the Faculty of Military Technology, the Faculty of Economics and Management, the Faculty of Military Health Sciences and three independent university institutes. Act No.214/2004 of the Code makes up the legal framework of a new legal subject which at the same time identified the date of establishing the University of Defence on 1 September 2004.

After the transformation of the Purkyně Military Medical Faculty into the Faculty of Military Health Sciences (seated still in Hradec Králové), the basic functions and tasks of the school focused on a specialized training of the Czech Army medical officers and on research work in the area of military health service have been saved.

A new official name of our school is: University of Defence, Faculty of Military Health Sciences in Hradec Králové.