The SPIEF noted the importance of career guidance for future doctors

The number of budget places in medical universities in the country is growing, and has recently increased by a third. In 2026, the state is going to pay for the education of over 30 thousand students. This was announced by the Ministry of Health on June 4.

At the session "Professional guidance and mentoring in medicine. Experience, best practices, the future" at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF-2026) noted that yesterday's students have little idea what awaits them in a few years, but universities can help students make a choice and give different specialties a try.

"The issue is not only and not so much the shortage of personnel in general, we graduate a lot, we graduate thousands of doctors from medical schools. But at the same time, there is a somewhat uneven distribution of these personnel among the specialties. In order to show students that there are not only gynecologists and dermatologists, but that there are many other specialties that can possibly win their hearts and seem no less interesting to them, we are engaged in such career guidance," said the director of the Medical Research and Educational Institute of Lomonosov Moscow State University, a leading researcher. Maria Vorontsova, an employee of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "NMC of Endocrinology named after Academician I.I. Dedov" of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.

"Guys come in and in their second year they say no, it's not my specialty, I'm leaving. And this percentage was quite high, which really didn't suit us. We started studying and launched such a project, it is called "School – University – clinics". Starting from school, we began to prepare applicants for ourselves," added Peter Glybochko, Rector of the I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

As for another important topic, mentoring, according to university leaders, it can begin already at school, and later it will allow you to feel more confident and avoid mistakes.

"If we talk about motivation, it's not enough to bring a young specialist to a municipality or a medical institution to work, it's important that he stays there, strengthens himself, adapts, is motivated, continues to work. Here we see that the situation can be very different," added Ekaterina Berestova, Director of Human Resources at the pharmaceutical company and lecturer at Lomonosov Moscow State University.

An ambulance is on hand: by 2030, 99 modular emergency rooms will appear in the Russian Federation.

Putin was also impressed by the development of telemedicine in Russia and noted the domestic medical equipment.

At the same time, the first graduates of the unique educational program "Leaders of the Future in Healthcare", which trains doctors to effectively manage modern medical technologies, are preparing to go to the regions of Russia. As noted by Vorontsova, who was one of the authors of the program, the project helps young professionals to better understand the profession — many of them do not know about all the possibilities of medicine and sometimes leave it.