There are 282,000 healthcare workers in Kazakhstan, including more than 83,000 doctors. These are the people being honored across the country these days. Nevertheless, there is still a shortage of medical professionals relative to the population.
The country specifically lacks general practitioners, surgeons, pediatricians, gynecologists, and anesthesiologists. Meanwhile, admission competition for dentistry has remained among the highest for many years, and the profession is considered one of the most in-demand in Kazakhstan. Last year, revenues in this branch of medicine reached a record 209 billion tenge.
“This is truly the most popular and one of the most expensive fields,” said Sergei Roy, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon at the National Hospital. “People will not tolerate tooth pain, and healthy teeth are, first and foremost, part of a person’s appearance and smile—the first thing others notice. The quality of people’s teeth is often seen as a reflection of a country’s economy. In Kazakhstan, things are going well in this regard. People in every region are eager to treat their teeth, especially since modern dentistry is now fast and painless. In Soviet dentistry, dental drills operated a hundred times slower, and there were virtually no anesthetics, so people were afraid of dentists and often postponed making appointments.”
Dentists themselves tend to be cheerful people. At least, their teams were always among the leaders in student KVN comedy competitions. As for Sergei Roy, he dreamed of becoming an investigator when he was a child, but his homeroom teacher persuaded him otherwise. It seemed a pity to send a boy with top grades in chemistry, biology, and mathematics into the police force.
“I didn’t get into medical school, so I enrolled in a dental college. Later, I still became a surgeon. At that time, the dental faculty was considered the easiest one, and many underachievers or carefree students chose it. Compared to neurosurgeons and cardiologists, studying was certainly easier, but today our profession has become one of the leading medical specialties. Perhaps the reason is that we give people a smile and provide quick relief from pain.
