On Monday, October 10, 2022 a meeting of the Minister of Health of the Slovak Republic was held in the afternoon at the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic Vladimír Lengvarský and State Secretary Lenka Dunajová Družkovská with the heads of medical faculties in the Slovak Republic, with the dean of LF UK Bratislava Professor Juraj Sten, rector of LF SZU Prof. Peter Šimko, Vice-Dean of JLF UK in Martin Ján Švihrom and online joined Professor Peter Jarčuška, Dean of LF UPJŠ in Košice. Professor Monika Jankechová, Director of the Department of Health Education, attended the meeting.
The discussion included issues of higher education in relation to the current but also long-standing health situation. The topic of the interviews was also to obtain information from the best known about the often discussed possibility of increasing the number of students in medical faculties and under which conditions the study is taking place. They also discussed the state and limits of pre-graduate education, specialisation studies, practical teaching and so on.
The chiefs of medical faculties stated the need to perform an objective and accurate analysis of the number of doctors missing in the Slovak Republic and its causes, and based on it define what is expected in this regard from faculties. The professors also said that one thing is to increase the number of students, but the other is to keep young doctors in Slovakia. The participants of the meeting stated that although medical higher education is quality but financially undersized for a long time.
Vladimír Lengvarský, the health minister, thanked the faculty's representatives for their work and expressed his conviction that their financial requirements, which were raised and requested by the Ministry, would also be incorporated into the 2023 budget. Education of health professionals is one of the priorities of the resort, as demonstrated by a wide-ranging discussion across professional or professional organisations.
During the meeting, several guests stated that on all sides there was a will to improve the conditions of study at the medical faculties in Slovakia and to do their utmost to ensure that young doctors did not go abroad, which, however, is not possible literally from day to day. The Memorandum of Cooperation on the Reform of the Education of Young Doctors, in which the parties are working together, is intended not only to express this will but also to provide concrete steps and important data according to the proposals of the medical faculties and thus their real needs.
In the coming days, the necessary data will be collected, while the Ministry will send to the faculties the exact methodology for their collection and will continue to prepare the mentioned memorandum also on the basis of specific comments from medical faculties. State Secretary, Ministry of Lenka Dunajová The cooperative assured the guests on the establishment of a working group to prepare for health education reform with the participation of representatives of medical faculties: We will also prepare this reform in close cooperation with experts, on the basis of facts and data that will be sent to us in view of the major and very important objectives that we have before us and which we want to achieve in the shortest possible time. stated the State Secretary.
