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The contemporaiy medicine witnesses and endures extensive and intensive penetration of science and engineering into all fields of diagnostics, therapeutic and surgical treatment procedures, and research. Among different branches of' science and engineering optical science and engineering seem to play a leading role in the development of qualitatively new horizons in medicine. Partially this is due to the advent of lasers - generators of optical radiation with unique properties in broad ranges of wavelengths, intensities and other parameters. To a great extent the development ofnovel optical and litser equipment, diagnostic and treatment procedures in medicine appeared possible thanks to joint efforts of scientists, engineers and physicians. Nonetheless there is a lot of evidence for failures in collaboration of actually good specialists in optics science and engineering on one hsnd and physicians on the other hand. These failures are to a certain extent due to poor understanding of each other by both parties, narrow sightedness ofdesigners, and objective difficulties for working in such interdisciplinaty fields as biomedical optics and/or optical medicine. The amount of success and failures in joint work very much depend on the quality of education and university curricula. We have to admit that up to veiy recently courses on biomedical optics were very rare and did not cover the whole variety ofphenomena, techniques and applications. The aim ofthis presentation is to share the authors' experience and understanding of current status and problems of optical education of medical and physics students in major Russian medical and classical universities.
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