A competency-based approach to teaching healthy lifestyle and public health promotion in clinical students

Aim. To study the approaches of Russian medical universities to teaching the implementing and monitoring the effectiveness of healthy lifestyle and public health promotion measures and formulating achie­vement indicators in the form of knowledge, skills, and abilities. Material and methods . Web scraping is the extraction of key professional educational programs in clinical specialties from the official web­sites of medical universities, followed by an analysis of the course syllabi, curricula, and competency matrices to identify courses in which professional competencies "Implementation and monitoring of the effectiveness of healthy lifestyle and public health promotion measures" are developed, and a comparison of competency development indicators (knowledge, skills, and abilities). Results . A comparative analysis of competency development indicators presented in the Hygiene course syllabi for General Medicine at three Russian medical universities in the form of students' educational achievements (knowledge, skills, and abilities) does not allow us to confidently assert that graduates will develop the required competency when implementing educational programs. Moreover, at most univer­sities, this competency is developed in theoretical departments and is not covered in senior years during clinical courses. Conclusion. The obtained data indicate a following problem in Rus­sian medical education: the lack of a unified approach across the country's universities to developing the professional competency "Implementation and monitoring of the effectiveness of healthy lifestyle and public health promotion measures" and the absence of a list of courses that graduates must complete to master this competency.