The Ministry of Health of the aggressor country of the Russian Federation has excluded the position of a sexologist from the new nomenclature of medical positions. The Russian propaganda agency Kommersant reported this on June 2.
As explained in the department, the update is associated with bringing the nomenclature into compliance with the qualification requirements approved previously.
Eliminating the position means health care organizations will no longer be able to recruit new sex therapists. At the same time, current specialists will allegedly retain the right to work, but in the future they may face changes in the accreditation system and will be forced to move into related fields – psychiatry, medical psychology, gynecology and urology.
Sexologist and psychiatrist Dmitry Orlov said that a separate medical specialty in this form was rare and allegedly difficult to prepare. According to him, there is no separate medical specialty of sexologist in the world, and in Russia there are less than 100 of them.
“It was a Russian innovation that people were proud of for a long time,” Orlov said.
At the same time, new positions appear in the updated nomenclature, including a doctor in healthy longevity medicine. This specialty will be focused on early identification of disease risks and the formation of individual prevention programs.
In total, 16 positions were removed from the list and 11 new ones were added. Most changes will take effect on September 1, 2026.
