Problematic issues of regulatory support of training and performance of non-staff healthcare professionals of the Disaster Medicine Service of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
Authors: Lemeshkin R. N. , Bigunets V. D. , Belousov V. S. , Sinkiewicz A. V. 
Published: April 2019

Relevance. The available unique experience of elimination of medical and sanitary consequences of emergency situations of natural, technogenic and social nature proves that the effectiveness of rendering medical care within or on the border of emergency area depends on timely arrival and actions of non-staff healthcare professionals of the All-Russian service for disaster medicine – crews for specialized medical care, physician-and-nurse crews. Directly during training and practical activities non-staff healthcare professionals face problematic issues affecting their readiness and quick response.

Intention. To define the most significant problematic issues influencing work of non-staff healthcare professionals of the Service for disaster medicine of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on elimination of medical and sanitary consequences of emergency situations.

Methodology. Content analysis of the facts and trends in the documents regulating activities of non-staff healthcare professionals of emergency formations was performed. Non-staff physicians were surveyed on problematic issues of training, practical activities and professional competence and importance of these issues ranked: “not important” – 1, “important” – 2, “very important” – 3 with assigning respective points.

Results and Discussion. In the military-medical organizations of the central subordination, including the Kirov Military Medical Academy, emergency formations of Service for disaster medicine of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation exist to strengthen (special-purpose) medical groups and medical institutions responsible for admitting casualties from emergency areas. An “average portrait” of a non-staff healthcare professional was as follows: male surgeon of 38.7±1.1 after a clinical internship, with an academic degree and experience in subject domain of 13.4 years. He has served (worked) at the Kirov Military Medical Academy and carried out functional duties on a constant basis, with experience more than two years as a part of physician-nurse or specialized medical care (thoracoabdominal) crew, with sufficient experience in elimination of medical and sanitary consequences of emergencies. At the same time during training and practical activities he faces a number of issues, such as labor relations and quality assessment of performance during elimination of medical and sanitary consequences of emergency situations, unsatisfactory resource and organizational support and also low readiness of all the non-staff members of the crew.

Conclusion. Besides problematic issues of labor relations in emergency formations, the factors influencing training, performance and professional competence of non-staff healthcare professionals were defined, i.e. special equipment for medical evacuation (sanitary aviation); unsatisfactory facilities intended for elimination of medical and sanitary consequences of emergencies; medical equipment in emergency areas. As a result of the analysis, all the problematic issues were limited to 3 fundamental internal (hidden) factors influencing training, performance and professional competence of healthcare professionals at the Kirov Military Medical Academy: “Basic resources” (22.05%), “Shortcomings in daily activities” (11.9%), “Readiness for actions” (10.4%). To minimize the specified problematic issues, various (alternative) options are suggested.