Within the conditions of a changing situation and distance learning implementation, the problem of organizing the independent work of the students becomes relevant. The paper analyzes the importance of the availability of the Environmental Chemistry elective course taught in the second semester for the formation of independent work of the first-second-year students of the Faculty of Pediatrics of the Ural State Medical University. The authors carried out the analysis of the efficiency of study this discipline clustered with other chemical disciplines: Chemistry – the first semester, and Clinical Aspects of Physical and Colloid Chemistry – the third semester. The study of these disciplines conforms to the implementation of three stages of formation of independent work of the students – the propaedeutic, practice-activity, and training-research. The authors analyzed the results of the survey and performance at the second and third stages, carried out the comparative monitoring of the efficiency of distance educational technologies used in the process of teaching the Environmental Chemistry elective course. The readiness of the Environmental Chemistry discipline for distance training made it possible to quickly organize an independent work of the students with the remote access laboratory-based work in the spring of 2020. The study showed that only 30–40 % of freshers attended the intermediate practice-activity stage, and skipping this stage causes poor preparation of the first-year students of the Faculty of Pediatrics and the inability to correctly expressing themselves at the training-research stage. Each stage of organizing the independent work of the students aims at the progressive formation of particular competencies necessary to perform job functions and labor actions according to the occupational standard 02.008 District Pediatric Physician. The independent work of the students organized using new information technologies, at the second, practice-activity, stage, develops the students’ desire for independent cognitive activity, and promotes performance improvement.