On the basis of generalization and analysis of published scientific works and memoirs of academician V.D. Belyakovs contemporaries, the main stages of his scientific and pedagogical activity as head of the Department of General and Military Epidemiology of the Military Medical Academy named after S.M. Kirov are considered. It is shown how, under the leadership of the activities of the department staff by Vitaly Dmitrievich Belyakov, the training of the teaching staff was set, ensuring continuous professional development and the ascent of employees along the hierarchical service and scientific ladder. The system of training its own personnel worked correctly and effectively within the department, and some such systems continue to work even now, preserving the best traditions laid down in the era of V.D. Belyakov to maintain the reputation of the department created for decades. Academician Vitaly Dmitrievich Belyakov, an outstanding military epidemiologist, scientist, and teacher, Major General of the medical service, who consistently headed the epidemiology departments of two leading educational medical institutions of the country in St. Petersburg and Moscow, had a great influence on the development of not only military epidemiology but also domestic medicine in general. Having developed, with his students at the S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy, the theory of internal regulation of parasitic systems, recognized as the biological foundation of the epidemiology of infectious diseases, he reformatted the previous theory of the epidemic process into the paradigm of population pathology of biomedical sciences. He was one of the first to consider epidemiology as a general medical diagnostic and preventive discipline, actively introducing epidemiological research methods into clinical medicine and public health, as well as into medical education at all levels at the I.M. Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy. He can be considered the founder of the methodology of epidemiological diagnostics, who extended it to population non-infectious pathology, and the founder of the original and effective concept of epidemiological surveillance. In addition, the system of training and management of pedagogical and scientific personnel created by V.D. Belyakov deserves attention.
