Mentoring and staff sustainability in a city polyclinic

Relevance. In the Russian Federation, mentoring has received independent labour and sector-specific regulation. For medical organizations, practical implementation requires not only assigning a mentor but also creating a reproducible process of professional adaptation with defined stages, responsibilities and evaluation criteria. The purpose of the study: to assess workforce and organizational outcomes observed during implementation of an extended mentoring model in a city polyclinic and to identify conditions for its reproducibility. Materials and methods. A single-centre observational organizational study combined longitudinal analysis for 2024 through the first half of 2026 and a cross-sectional comparative survey of 67 district physicians from three city polyclinics: 18 employees of the study organization and 49 physicians from other polyclinics. Twelve employees directly participated in the formalized program: four mentors and eight mentees. Sociological, statistical and analytical methods were used; documentation time was measured in 100 observations at each time point. Fisher exact tests, Wilson 95% confidence intervals and Holm correction were applied. Results. The time to independent outpatient practice decreased from 8–10 to 3–4 months, and mean documentation time decreased from 12 to 7 minutes. The number of physicians with less than three years of experience who left the organization was five in 2024, one in 2025 and zero in the first half of 2026. Full satisfaction with work organization was reported by 13 of 18 physicians (72.2%) in the study polyclinic and 13 of 49 (26.5%) in the comparison group (p=0.001; Holm-adjusted p=0.008). Excessive workload was reported by 8 of 18 (44.4%) and 41 of 49 (83.7%), respectively (p=0.004; Holm-adjusted p=0.018). Conclusion. Implementation of the formalized mentoring model was accompanied by favourable workforce and organizational trends. The single-centre non-randomized design and small sample preclude causal conclusions; the findings support a multicentre prospective evaluation.