According to the authors, transformations in medicine in modern Russia are characterized by the transition to the market of medical services, which is considered as one of the causes of a relative status inflation, a decline in the prestige of the profession of a doctor. The discrepancy in the activity and status of this professional group is a determinant moment. Modern process of institutionalization of medicine is realizing in the change of the status and the marginalization of social-professional groups of the Institute of Medicine. In the opinion of the authors the process of marginalization of doctors is explained by the «concept of status inconsistency» proposed by G. Lensky.

This study presents the results of the analysis of the satisfaction of doctors in the Saratov region with their professional activities. The study included 594 doctors from state, municipal, and private medical organizations in the region. The social and professional characteristics of the respondents were evaluated. Despite financial deprivation, most of the doctors included in the study expressed satisfaction with their professional activities. The results of this study is possibly explained from the perspective of the phenomenon of paradoxical medicine described by academician A.V. Reshetnikov.

The current period of development of the Russian healthcare system is characterized as a crisis, which is primarily due to the personnel imbalance. The authors, on the basis of a medical and statistical study of the staffing of medical organizations in the Saratov region, revealed the presence of structural imbalances: both between the actual population of the region and the staffing of the healthcare system with medical personnel in general, and between the indicators that characterize the staffing of organizations providing primary healthcare and specialized medical care with medical personnel. In regional healthcare, with a general shortage of medical personnel in the state health system (-986 doctors), there is a particularly pronounced shortage of polyclinic doctors (-986 doctors, mostly district pediatricians and internists), with a slight surplus of doctors in inpatient medical organizations (+91 people). The personnel shortage in the primary health care system determines a decrease in the level of its availability and quality and is a key risk factor for the reputational losses of the regional health care system.

The article analyzed personnel crisis problem in the modern healthcare system in Russia on the basis of the results of a focus group study. Accordingly, the formation and severity of the crisis at both regional and national healthcare system are influenced by the migration of medical personnel (from one regional center to another, other Russian regions, and overseas), disproportion in the number of doctors of some clinical specialties (such as dentists and dermatovenerologists) over the actual staffing needs of a regional health center, and shortage of middle and junior medical personnel in regional medical organizations that leads to an increase in the burden on doctors, and existing discrepancies between the requirements of the labor market in terms of work experience among young specialists and its actual absence among graduates of medical universities.

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