Generational change is an essential and necessary factor in medicine. No technology will matter if there are no people who can handle it. The Interregional Conference «Modern Healthcare: the Young Specialist’s View» held as part of the 13th St. Petersburg International Health Forum, showed that young people are ready not only to master innovations, but also to offer modern working methods.

The Conference was organized by the Youth Council of the Professional Association of Nursing Specialists of the Leningrad Region. Tatiana Glazkova, President of the Association, Chief Freelance Specialist in Nursing Management at the Ministry of Healthcare of the Russian Federation for the Northwestern Federal District and the Leningrad Region Health Committee, gave a welcoming speech and told how the Youth Council was established, as well as wished the participants fruitful work.

«Youth is our future, and the healthcare is in your hands», she concluded.

The main theme of the Conference was young specialists’ adaptation to practical work. In particular, Arina Alekseeva, Head Nurse and Chairperson of the Youth Council at the Vyborg Children’s City Hospital, told about this. She drew attention to ageism widespread in medical teams, that is, pressure on young people from their elder colleagues. Graduates from medical colleges and universities, according to her, need to develop strong stress tolerance. The main part of her report was devoted to the specificity of working with children. Arina Alekseeva shared effective methods and techniques of communicating with different age groups, from preschoolers to teenagers, designed to overcome their fears and complexes before medical procedures. The particular topic is aggressive parents of sick children: communicating with them without conflicts is also a kind of art.

Other speakers also dwelled on difficulties faced by young people when coming to work. So, Elizaveta Ostroumova, Chairperson of the Youth Council at the Boksitogorsk Interdistrict Hospital, listed among them the lack of experience, the violation of the balance between work and private life, a low starting salary and the discrepancy between the knowledge gained during the study and the real requirements. All the speakers unanimously emphasized the importance of the institution of mentors in medical teams. Where they are present and take responsibility for their task, young people get quickly involved in the work processes.

Many of the presentations concerned the practical use of innovative technologies in nurses’ work. Aleksandra Smirnova, a nurse at the Leningrad Regional Clinical Hospital, spoke in detail about the equipment often used in nursing: from well-known infusion pumps, monitors and ventilators to robots and artificial intelligence modules. The latter, in her opinion, still cannot completely replace a person despite they help in a variety of ways (they are engaged in symptom-checking, identifying pathological foci on medical images, fighting dementia, etc.).

«AI fundamentally changes medicine, but it does not replace, but complements, a specialist», she stressed.

Amalia Gorshkova, an instrument nurse at the Vyzhletsov Arkhangelsk Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital, spoke about the transition from a traditional operating room to an integrative one. If in the «classic» operating rooms the data was displayed on individual monitors, the surgeon controlled the process with voice and gestures, and the staff got tangled in wires, the integrative operating rooms that replaced the classic ones were created following different principles. There, all processes are controlled from one panel, all data is in the surgeon’s field of vision, with the online communication with other operating rooms in the same hospital, and even in other regions is provided via the Internet. A modern instrument nurse must have digital literacy, be able to work in a single interface, display any desired image, control lighting, have skills in working with hybrid technologies, and most importantly, understand exactly what to do at one time or another, and have systemic surgical thinking. In general, she must be not just a nurse who provides instruments, but a real manager of the digital process.

Ekaterina Vyzhanova, Head Nurse of the Surgical Department at the Dolgushin City Clinical Hospital No. 3, in turn, spoke about communication technologies used in the Tambov Region. In particular, telemedicine and remote diagnostic systems are widespread there: in conditions of the shortage of personnel in remote areas, these methods are often used for analyzing ECG results by contacting specialists from the regional centre. Remote conferences with colleagues from federal clinics are often organized, as well.

The range of reports of the Conference participants turned out to be very broad: from organizing emergency rooms in polyclinics to patient identification systems, from typology and methods of anemia treatment to modern methods of medical rehabilitation. Ksenia Simakova, a nurse at Arkhangelsk Clinical Oncological Dispensary, shared patient-centered interaction techniques with patients undergoing chemotherapy in day hospitals, and Mariam Pogosyan, a nurse at Republican Oncological Dispensary in Petrozavodsk (Karelia), delivered her report on breast cancer prevention and accompanied it with a real self-examination master class.

All the presentations aroused great interest among the listeners, who asked a lot of questions. The Conference was participated by representatives of eight regions of Russia, and it can be stated that the conference was definitely a success in terms of experience exchange.