Scientific Justification of Professional Selection for a Medical Specialty (Using Dermatology as an Example)

The dissertation is devoted to the development and scientific justification of a methodology for professional selection for a medical specialty using dermatology as an example. The research investigates the effectiveness of multimedia testing of professional qualities and the level of specialist training, as well as analyzes the influence of the psychotype of personality on the professional success of a dermatologist-venereologist. Multimedia tests with various types of tasks have been developed for assessing competence in dermatology-venereology, an algorithm for forecasting professional success has been created, and a benchmark class of specialists has been formed. A model of professional selection is proposed that allows for the unification of approaches to evaluating candidates for medical specialties.

Relevance. The training of a physician as an intellectual individual and a highly qualified specialist depends on the minimum resources that are received by higher medical schools. The selection of medical graduates both within higher educational institutions and during post-graduate activity makes it possible to forecast the prospects for successful professional activity and the quality of medical care provided to the population.

The reform of medical education presupposes the emergence of a new profession of a general practice physician — a family physician. This specialty implies a physician with encyclopedic knowledge in many branches of medicine. Such a physician must not only possess well-developed skills in emergency aid but also be capable of diagnosing many of the most frequently encountered diseases in so-called narrow specialties and providing the necessary assistance. These qualification requirements for a family physician dictate new approaches both to training and to methods of assessing his or her competence.

To date, professional selection of specialists has been carried out by PSYCHOLOGISTS. They assess personal characteristics of an individual based on various methods of psychological testing, which are correlated with the requirements of the intended profession (professional selection) or form recommendations for choosing a type of professional activity (professional guidance). Such an approach to professional selection does not take into account the qualities of professional training of a specialist and is based solely on his or her personal characteristics. To this day, no dependence of mastering any profession on the psychotype of personality has been identified, but preferences in the mode of information perception depending on certain characteristics are known.

The humanistic orientation of the profession of Physician requires selection into the profession not only by professional characteristics and the level of training but also by the qualities necessary for making fundamentally important diagnostic and therapeutic decisions, as well as by personal qualities. Reliability and objectivity of assessment methods come to the forefront.

The object of this research is dermatologist-venereologists of three regions of the Central Administrative Okrug of the Russian Federation, interns, residents of the first and second year of study, and third-year students of Kursk State Medical University.

The subject of this research is the comprehensive assessment of psychological testing of personality and the level of his or her professional competence for the purpose of forecasting successful professional activity as a dermatologist-venereologist.

Thus, the problem of organizing and managing professional selection for medical specialties is relevant.

Since this section of the process of professional selection of specialists as an auxiliary process in the training of medical specialists has not received sufficient reflection, it became the subject of our research.

The goal of the dissertation work is the development and scientific justification of a methodology for professional selection for a medical specialty using dermatology as an example.

The boundaries of the research included studying the initial level of professional training of students and dermatologist-venereologists in relation to their psychotype of personality, providing a database for the scientific justification of a model for forecasting professional success in the provision of quality medical care.

In order to achieve the stated goals, the following tasks were addressed:

1. To identify variants of quality control of specialist training based on literary sources and the results of processing practical developments.

2. To develop multimedia tests with various types of tasks for assessing the level of professional competence in the specialty "dermatology-venereology."

3. To identify preferred variants of tests for increasing the objectivity of assessment of professional suitability.

4. To study the influence of the psychotype of personality on professional success.

5. To investigate the level of professional training in parallel with the psychotype of personality in order to develop a benchmark and forecast the quality of results of the medical profession.

6. To develop a methodology for assessing and forecasting the quality of physician training and his or her professional suitability.

The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time:

— The effectiveness of applying multimedia testing of professional qualities of a specialist has been studied, and its advantage over other types of test control has been demonstrated;

— Multimedia tests for controlling the knowledge of a dermatologist-venereologist have been developed and tested on an electronic medium;

— The first textbook on dermatology-venereology for training students and physicians of postgraduate education faculties has been published on a compact disc, including training and control programs in multimedia format;

— The influence of the psychotype of personality on the level of professional training of a dermatologist-venereologist has been demonstrated;

— An algorithm for forecasting professional success for the purpose of professional selection for a medical specialty (using dermatology as an example) has been developed.

The scientific and practical significance of the research consists in the fact that as a result of the conducted studies, multimedia textbooks for students and dermatologist-venereologists have been developed, which made it possible to maximally approximate the training of students and physicians undergoing cycles of postgraduate training to the conditions of practical activity within the requirements of the Program of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Social Development.

Standardized principles of education based on test-benchmark constructions have been introduced at the federal level, making it possible to unify education in this subject across all higher medical educational institutions with the achievement of effective results in professional orientation and success in practical skills.

The textbooks created on electronic media have been recommended by the Central Educational-Methodical Problem Commission on Dermatology-Venereology for implementation in the educational process at departments of medical universities. On the recommendation of the educational-methodical problem commission on dermatology-venereology, the monographs "Multimedia Testing Technology in the Management of the Educational Process in a Medical University" and "Management of Independent Work of Students of a Medical University" have been published and are recommended for use in Russian universities.

A model of professional selection of a physician-specialist has been developed using dermatology as an example.

The main provisions put forward for defense:

1. Multimedia testing of the level of professional success is a means approaching the optimal one and making it possible to obtain a normal distribution of test control results.

2. The psychotype of personality does not influence professional success and therefore cannot be used as a criterion for professional selection.

3. The assessment of the level of training of a specialist for the purpose of forecasting professional success can be carried out using a multimedia test, which was used for the formation of the benchmark class and the recognition of multidimensional objects.

4. The method of multidimensional object display for the recognition of extendedly distributed patterns for the purpose of developing a benchmark using the example of forecasting the quality of training of a dermatologist-venereologist specialist is recommended for forecasting the success of a physician of any specialty.

Author's contribution. All results and provisions put forward for defense, confirmed by the defense of the work, were obtained and developed personally by the author. The scientifically justified system of professional selection in the specialty "dermatology-venereology" developed by the author is a model of professional selection for any medical specialty for staffing with quality medical service. Multimedia tests on dermatology-venereology developed in co-authorship with V.F. Popov provide an objective assessment of the level of professional training, taking into account the preferences of the psychotype of personality of the person being tested. The system of multimedia control of the level of professional training in dermatology-venereology has been tested, received a positive evaluation, and is applied in leading higher medical institutions of Russia.

Publication of results. The results of the dissertation research were reported at the first All-Russian Scientific Forum "Innovative Technologies of Medicine in the 21st Century" "Medical Computer Technologies" (Moscow, 2005), and at a regional scientific-practical conference dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the postgraduate education faculty of Kursk State Medical University, 2006.

The results of the dissertation research are used in the educational process of a number of medical-biological and clinical departments of Kursk State Medical University, have been introduced into the work of departments of dermatology-venereology at Tver State Medical Academy, I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Russian National Research Medical University (RMU), Belgorod University, and a number of medical-biological and clinical departments of medical universities in central Russia.

Based on the materials of the dissertation research, 15 printed works have been published, including 2 books, 3 registered in the Informregistr of scientific publications, and 4 publications in journals recommended by the Higher Attestation Commission (VAK).

Structure and volume. The dissertation consists of an introduction, a literature review, a chapter on materials and research methods, three chapters constituting the body of the dissertation, a conclusion, conclusions, a bibliography, and an appendix. The dissertation is presented across 123 pages, contains 44 figures and 18 tables. The bibliography contains references to 170 domestic and 32 foreign literary sources.