The role of professional competences in matching the qualifications of medical professionals with the requirements of health care services

The aim of the article is to indicate the role of professional competences in adjusting the qualifications of medical workers to the requirements of the patients treatment process. The article presents the activities of EU and the Polish labour ministry aimed at increasing the role of competences in the labour market policy. It also shows exemplary connections of competences with tasks of family nurse, competence profile in 12 selected medical professions, social competences and personality traits, important for the performance of various medical services. Information on competences is contained in the “Information on occupations”, prepared by the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Affairs. The analysis in the article leads to the conclusion, that not all descriptions of competences are adapted to the specificity of medical work. They must not be used as a benchmark for the development of competence profiles in a particular healthcare organization. 

Przygotowanie do wydania elektronicznego finansowane w ramach umowy 637/P-DUN/2019 ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę.

Phenomenon. The process of career decision making by medical students has been the subject of many studies analyzing the choice. However, the studies have not analyzed determination of global priorities for the criteria of choice or alternatives regarding the choice of medical specialty. The goal of this paper is to determine the weights (priorities), factors and alternatives involved in the choice of specialty for year six medical students.

Approach. A sample of 202 final-year medical students at the Medical University was examined using Saaty’s Analytic Hierarchy Process. During interviews, the students used the Saaty’s scale to pair various factors influencing their choice of medical specialty. Analysis was performed to evaluate the crucial decisive criteria and various decisive models.

Findings. When choosing the medical specialty, the highest rank was given to “individual physician’s aptitude and expected professional attainment” (P = 0.4748), followed by “the features of the medical specialty” (P = 0.3636) and “the process of training for the specialty” (P = 0.1616). The most important sub-criteria were “intellectual qualities and competencies useful in practicing the specialty”, “place of work” and “opportunity to create one’s own medical practice”. A model of specialty choice was obtained. The most important criteria of choice were “opportunities for professional career in healthcare entities”, “place of work”, “opportunity to create one’s own medical practice” and “expected income”. 

Insights. Understanding the factors influencing choice of specialty enables workforce planning to meet local and national healthcare needs. It also helps optimize the profile of medical education courses offered by medical universities. The results obtained, although limited in their generalisability, may support organizing specific curricula and strategies to encourage the choice of specialties in short supply. 

Przygotowanie do wydania elektronicznego finansowane w ramach umowy 637/P-DUN/2019 ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę.

Coordination as an element of modern medical care in oncology

The number of patients suffering from chronic diseases, including oncology, has been systematically increasing in recent years. There is a shortage of doctors and nurses in Poland, and the actions taken within the healthcare system, they focus primarily on securing typically medical needs. Staff in medical facilities are often unable to fully meet the needs of patients. For the treatment to be effective, it must be carried out with the participation of a patient who should experience the greatest comfort and sense of security during therapy. The patient should also have full knowledge about his condition and receive information enabling him to find himself in the health care system. Modern medical care should also include non-medical aspects of patient support. Numerous publications indicate the importance of comprehensive healthcare. It is not possible to build an optimal model of care for a chronically ill patient without strengthening medical staff. The experience of people who, since 2015, have been coordinating oncological treatment as part of their duties, indicates that treatment coordination must be formalized and assigned to a specific person should belong to the duties of this professional category in order to deprive this process of signs of randomness. Therefore, it becomes necessary, firstly, to model and define this function precisely, and secondly, to begin the systematic and comprehensive education of future coordinators. 

Przygotowanie do wydania elektronicznego finansowane w ramach umowy 637/P-DUN/2019 ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę.

The reforms of the healthcare system (market economy of the sector) have changed the requirements for Poland’s hospital directors. Consequently, ever greater numbers of non-doctors have been appointed to these positions in recent years. One of the responses to this change in the requirements has been directors undertaking postgraduate studies in order to enhance their qualifications or by others to meet the requirements included in recruitment competitions to select a director. The research conducted in 2017 on a group of 137 directors found out that the majority of respondents completed at least one postgraduate course of study. The groups more often undertaking a course of study, or more than one course comprised women, non-doctors, especially those with an engineering education, and younger people. The studies most often chosen were in the field of healthcare management, which comprised 43% of all studies undertaken by the research group. Those least interested in postgraduate studies were doctors. 

Przygotowanie do wydania elektronicznego finansowane w ramach umowy 637/P-DUN/2019 ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę.

The purpose of the paper is to identify and explore social determinants of health in women as compared to men. We used data from The Collaborative Research on Ageing in Europe (COURAGE in Europe) study. The study population consisted of 1,317 men and 1,921 women. The independent measure was Self-Rated Health (SRH) and the World Health Organisation Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0), which incorporates both condition of health and disability. To find determinants of WHODAS 2.0. linear regression model was performed and in the case of SRH the proportional odds model was used. Analysis showed that women’s SRH was significantly related to age, level of education. household income, type of occupation and family background. There was a similar relation observed amongst the male results. The analysis of the results indicates that socio-economic status is one of the main determinants of peoples’ health. This relation was observed for both women and men. As analysis shows, the level of financial situation during childhood changes SRH especially among women. For men’s health a more important variable was mother’s occupation. 

Przygotowanie do wydania elektronicznego finansowane w ramach umowy 637/P-DUN/2019 ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę.

The article presents the thesis that there is information available in the public sphere on the basis of which the situation in the Polish health system can be diagnosed. Such a diagnosis would make it possible to identify the problems experienced by patients as ailments and other problems which may lead to missing the chance of positive impact on the health condition. Since the study is focused on and confined to the diagnosis of problems, especially those perceived by patients as limiting, and leaves their explanation to be considered further, the range of sources is necessarily restricted. The following sources are indicated: WHO reports, European Health Consumer Index reports, Centre for Public Opinion Research (Pol. CBOS) reports, National Health Fund (Pol. NFZ) annual reports, WHC BAROMETER results and OECD documents. On this basis, it can be argued that a serious problem for the system is the multi-cause perception of the patients’ failure to meet their health needs, long waiting times for specialist consultation, diagnostic tests and hospitalisations, shortage of time and attention devoted to patients, issues of equal treatment of patients and – oftentimes – dissatisfaction with the functioning of the system. After formulating the outline of the diagnosis presented in this text, considerations were made aimed at explaining the revealed problems.