Employment of a young medical specialist: levels of manifestation of the problem

Abstract

The article discusses the topic of employment of medical university graduates and young medical professionals. Based on the data of expert focus groups (2016) with teachers and graduates of medical universities and heads of pharmaceutical companies, as well as narrative interviews with young medical professionals (2021), the authors identify a number of problems that arise during the first employment and impede successful professional socialisation of yesterday's graduates in the industry labour market. The authors note that at present, despite the interest in cooperation between the main actors of interaction in the industry labour market of medical specialists, the key problems remain as follows: the inconsistency in the implementation of the personnel requirements of the industry, the lag gap between the content of educational university programmes and the current requirements of employers, as well as the weak orientation of applicants in employment opportunities by profession. At the same time, the difficulties of finding a job for a graduate of a medical university are mainly associated with a lack of practical skills among young specialists, that brings forward the need for cooperation between universities and employers. Important factors contributing to increasing the competitiveness of graduates of medical universities in the labour market are the active work of the university to adapt students to the profession (educational work, the creation and maintenance of the "dialogue platform" for applicants-graduates and employers, measures to increase the motivation for building a professional career and the readiness of young people to practical work in the specialty, etc.), providing young specialists with the opportunity to receive additional non-medical education - economic, managerial, legal, sociological, psychological and other. In addition, experts associate the high competitiveness (as an indicator of professional socialisation) of university graduates with the introduction of innovative practices for individual training of students based on their personal characteristics, inclinations and talents. For a deeper understanding of the negative factors that complicate employment, the specific manifestation of these problems is considered at three levels - the labour market as a whole, the “university-employer” system, and personal. A comparative analysis of the results of two measurements carried out with an interval of five years allowed to draw a conclusion about the sustainable nature of the identified problems, in fact, their chronicity, and outline possible ways and means to overcome the current situation.