President Iliana Yotova will hand a diploma and officer's epaulettes to the top graduate of the "Aprilski-2026" class at a ceremony at the Military Medical Academy (VMA) at 10:00am, the head of state's press office said. Nineteen cadets will get their first officer rank and then start service in the Bulgarian Army.

Yotova is supreme commander of the armed forces. She will review the guard of honour of cadets from the Naval Academy, then greet the young military doctors and the guests. The defence, health and education ministers, the chief of defence, representatives of military bodies and other official guests have been invited.

The cadets study "Medical Support of the Armed Forces" at the Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy (VVMU). They are the fourth class of military medics trained under a joint programme of the Naval Academy, the Prof. Dr. Paraskev Stoyanov Medical University in Varna (MU-Varna) and VMA. The "Military Doctor" project began in 2017.

VMA says the medicine course at MU-Varna meets the highest national and international standards. At the Naval Academy, cadets learn to steer a boat and a yacht, dive and survive in different conditions. On the most modern simulators in Europe, students steer virtual ships and interact with cadets from around the world. The statement says the programme combines medical training with the military skills that service requires.

The last three years of study cover the organisation of medical care, preventive military medicine, military medical supply, management and expertise, military surgery, military toxicology and other subjects.

The new doctors can specialise at VMA, where, the academy says, world-class associate professors and professors teach. The priority fields for military doctors are surgery, orthopaedics and trauma care, anaesthesiology and intensive care, psychiatry, plastic surgery and burns, virology, emergency medicine, infectious diseases and epidemiology.