Is It Easy to Recruit Young Doctors for Military Service?

Abstract

Health support for military personnel is a key stone for successful executing combat capacities of military personnel in time of military tasks realization. Recruitment system should provide military units with medical personnel that realize medical support and health care for military personnel and allows achieve tactical targets in peace time operations or in tactical military missions' tasks. The target of our study is to assess information level of medical students about military service that allow find gaps and identify problematic area in medical personnel recruiting process of National Armed Forces of Latvia. We have provided Questionnaire into medical students' group (N = 87) in Riga Stradins University in Latvia. Questionnaire allows to determine respondents' interests' levels about military career, their information level about military education and recruitment procedures. Questionnaire results indicated problems of recruitment system for medical personnel that are lack of information for target auditory (medical students) about recruitment procedure for military (medical) service. Recruitment of medical personnel is a challenge for recruitment system of armed forces in different countries that connect to compatible payment system and supporting professional medical a qualification system. Information about recruitment to the military medical service in National Armed Forces of Latvia should reinforce, focuses to the target auditory - medical students. Recruitment centre specialists spread activities in social media. Questionnaire data revealed that there is a potential group of young medical specialist who are interested in military medical service and are ready to connect professional medical career to National Armed Forces of Latvia.