12.02.2026

Residency Training Conference 2026

The residency training development day „When Digital Meets Clinical in Residency Training: Challenges and Solutions“, held on February 5th in Tartu, focused on improving the quality of education for the next generation of doctors and implementing digital solutions both in Estonia and in neighbouring countries.

The international conference, organised by the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Tartu, brought together representatives from leading medical faculties in Finland, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as all Estonian residency training bases.

Residency training is a special form of medical education, emphasised Dr Helen Reim, Vice-Dean for Residency at the University of Tartu's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, in her opening address.

"It is a challenging journey," she said. "It coincides with a time when our future doctors are making important life decisions alongside their studies — building homes and starting families. It is our privilege to stand by them during this period of life and, in collaboration between the university and clinical institutions, to train the best possible doctors for the future."

The opening session featured Grete Arro, Senior Researcher in Educational Psychology at Tallinn University, who spoke about how to shape learning and teaching environments in hospitals and family medicine centres to support inclusive and constructive learning. According to Arro, it is important to introduce discomfort — even confusion — into learning, as it is precisely this kind of personal conflict that prompts people to engage actively and acquire new knowledge.

From an international perspective, Professor Fedde Scheele, Dean at Amsterdam University Medical Centre, shared the Dutch experience of reforming residency training. Professor Ilze Grope, Vice-Dean for Residency at Riga Stradiņš University, provided an overview of the innovative e-portfolio in use at her institution.

The day concluded with the recording of a podcast episode titled "How to Teach in Time-Critical Situations?" with the Deltakutse team. The podcast featured Dr Helen Reim, Deltakutse host Dr Karl Oliver Tomson, Professor Fedde Scheele, and Professor David Carr, Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Toronto, who discussed — based on a real-life case — how to provide the best possible learning experience for residents in critical situations while ensuring patient safety.

On the day preceding the conference, representatives of Estonian residency training bases met to launch a supervisory training programme running until the end of this year. Discussions with international guests covered the current state of residency training in neighbouring countries, digital solutions, and upcoming developments.

On the day following the conference, university representatives focused on planning further collaboration.

The international conference and cooperation days help strengthen the University of Tartu's position as a leader in medical education in the region and lay the foundation for long-term collaboration in the development of residency training.

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The first part of the conference featured a co-learning session led by educational psychologist Grete Arro. Her session was followed by a panel discussion, in which psychiatry resident Dr Priit Välja and East Tallinn Central Hospital anaesthesiologist and intensive care physician Dr Maarja Hallik joined Grete Arro to discuss how residency is the best possible learning environment and what the various parties can do to support it.

The second part of the conference featured a presentation by Professor Fedde Scheele, Dean of Amsterdam University Medical Centre, who spoke about how competency-based residency programmes were developed in the Netherlands and what lessons were learned from that process. The second part of the session included a panel discussion with Anu Sarv, teaching skills consultant at the University of Tartu, and anaesthesiologist and intensive care physician Dr Mihkel Viru, where the group discussed how to align programmes with real-world needs.

The third part of the conference featured a presentation by Professor Ilze Grope, Dean of Stradiņš University, who shared her university's development journey in building an e-portfolio. The presentation was followed by a panel discussion, which also included Dr Lukas Šemeklis, a member of the e-portfolio development team at Kaunas University, and Karl Rammo, IT analyst at the University of Tartu. The discussion centred on the complexities of developing an e-portfolio suited to the clinical environment.

The conference concluded with the recording of a podcast in collaboration with the Deltakutse team, titled "How to Teach in Time-Critical Situations." The podcast featured Deltakutse host Dr Karl Oliver Tomson, Professor David Carr of the University of Toronto's Department of Emergency Medicine, Professor Fedde Scheele, and Vice-Dean for Residency Dr Helen Reim.