Occupational health education in Poland: new needs, new requirements, new programmes

The conditions of modern work environment in Poland generate new problems, new needs and new expectations in the area of occupational health. They are associated not only with the rapidly changing technologies and new professions but also with the psychosocial factors pertaining to extensive transformations of the political and economic systems. New needs and expectations determine a new approach: firstly, to the responsibilities of the occupational health specialists; secondly, to the organisation and management of the workers health care; and thirdly, to the general principles of the occupational health, including in particular relevant legislation. The new requirements concerning the operation of the occupational health system in all the three dimensions must be addressed in the design of the new training programmes in occupational health whether under- or postgraduate. Subjects to updating and modification should be not only the content of the training but also its forms and methodology. Competence-based learning should be accompanied by the modern methods of problem solving, distant learning, organised self-education and self-assessment. The growing interest in the quality of the training should be expressed, first of all, in the activities aiming at the development of procedures to assess the effectiveness of the training. It seems also necessary to adopt the active learning approach intensifying acquisition and verification of the knowledge and skills. This approach would also lead to deeper changes in the students' mentality and behaviour, e.g. to make them able to estimate their own and others' level of professional competence or shape the personal system of professional values under the conditions of the free-market economy in the health care which entails quality requirements for the services and the competition among its providers.