SAM strengthens residency bases in the regions - funding for educational competences
Quality healthcare can only be delivered by properly trained and educated professionals of a high standard. In order to strengthen the quality of residency studies and residency facilities across the country, the Ministry of Health will provide funding for the acquisition and development of educational competences of 490 resident mentors, with a budget of EUR 344 000.
Minister of Health Arūnas Dulkys says that this measure gives municipalities and regional medical institutions a real tool to attract doctors. "One of the biggest issues when I was touring the country's medical institutions was attracting doctors to the regions. We inherited a situation where young professionals exclusively chose big cities to practice. The situation is changing, by relaxing the requirements for the establishment of residency bases, and by introducing a requirement to spend 30% of practice time in the regions. We are now rushing to the aid of these medical institutions so that they can deepen their educational competences and thus meet the expectations of resident doctors. I urge municipalities and medical institutions to take an active role in enabling young specialists to get a closer look at their potential workplace," said the Minister.
The project, funded by the European Union Funds Investment Programme 2021-2027, is aimed at mentoring medical residents who will work in health care facilities located outside Vilnius and Kaunas. The aim of the project is to provide resident mentors with educational skills that will help to ensure a quality learning process and a positive psycho-emotional climate for resident doctors in the residency facilities, as well as to help young doctors to integrate more easily and efficiently into the health care system.
Resident mentors will be trained in a programme that will cover different areas of development, from the use of information systems and curriculum design to communication and leadership skills, mobbing and corruption prevention.
The procedure for the acquisition and updating of educational competences of the medical resident mentor and the updating and financing of the educational competences of the medical resident supervisor is laid down in the Ordinance of the Minister of Health, which entered into force on 1 August, and can be found here.
The Order stipulates that healthcare professionals who wish to become mentors of a medical resident will have to acquire and renew their educational competences every five years. Resident mentors will have to renew their educational competences at the same frequency.