The EU encourages all citizens to be multilingual, with the long-term objective that every citizen has practical skills in at least two languages in addition to his or her mother tongue. Recognizing the importance of learners achieving spoken and written competence in foreign languages, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LUHS) delivers a compulsory course of English for specific purposes (ESP). Medical English is the lingua franca of medical professionals worldwide and healthcare industries around the world have adopted it as the foremost language of communication.

The aim of this study is to identify the LUHS students and practicing medical professionals’ needs and expectations for Medical English acquisition. Students realize that they have to study Medical English if they want to communicate effectively within the modernized world of medicine. All the professionals working in the healthcare industry will have to use Medical English at some point in their career. Needs assessment has a vital role in the process of designing teaching/learning programmes and carrying out any language course. This has been acknowledged by several scholars and authors (Munby, 1978; Richterich & Chancerel, 1987; Hutchinson & Waters,1987; Berwick, 1989; Brindley, 1989; Robinson,1991; Johns, 1991; West, 1994; Seedhouse, 1995; Jordan, 1997; Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998; Hamp-Lyons, 2001; Finney, 2002).

The objectives of the study are as follows: (1) to investigate the extent of the need for the students to develop their English Language communicative skills; (2) to project what competences of the English language the respondents expect to acquire; (3) to improve the teaching/learning programme and create the learning environment reflecting real life situations, in which students will have to apply their professional knowledge; (4) to determine the preferred methods of teaching.

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