Modern public healthcare practices are constantly being improved by the medical community, which involves approval and implementation of professional standards such as including public health activities in the responsibilities of medical specialists. To understand how well such skills can be mastered by the specialists, we have conducted a comparative analysis of ophthalmologist qualifications found in the most often used guidelines and textbooks. With logical, analytical and hypothetical analysis, books and guides published before 2018 were found to have insufficient coverage of the public health responsibilities. Improvement of the public healthcare in terms of professional standards is an important course of development for the medical field. The continued work on Russian Federal State Educational Standard (Higher Education) for Ophthalmology — index number 31.08.59 — should include actualization of educational materials with modern public health notions, development of a universal learning evaluation database for specialist accreditation, as well as evaluation tools for the obtainment and confirmation of their qualification. The professional standards for ophthalmologists should fully account for the job responsibilities they acquire. Training of ophthalmologists in the public healthcare should utilize the following textbooks published in 2018: «Organization of medical aid in the Russian Federation» under the editorship of V.A. Reshetnikova, «Healthcare and public health» under the editorship of G.N. Tsarik, and «Public health and healthcare» by V.A. Medic.