The article focuses attention on the issue of formation of professional speech competence of medical colleges students by means of humanitarian courses, in particular, foreign language. The essential characteristics of the concepts «speech competence», «professional-speech competence», «communicative competence» are revealed. It is noted that the study of a foreign language by students in medical colleges takes into account the integrated nature of this educational discipline, which, on the one hand, involves the study of general grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and spelling, and on the other hand, a foreign language is studied within the framework of a professional direction, i.e., knowledge of a foreign language language takes into account the peculiarities of its professional use in the medical field. The study of a foreign language by students of the medical college takes place in close interaction with the clinical disciplines of the general medical cycle. Тhe main emphasis is placed on the formation of the student's vocabulary in accordance with the specifics of the professional activity of a medical specialist. The professional speech competence of medical colleges students, formed by the means of a foreign language, is considered through the prism of the main goals of communication: cognitive, regulatory, value orientation, etiquette. It was concluded that in the conditions when specialists of various fields are increasingly faced with the need to study foreign experience, when the need to process a significant amount of professional information increases, when the improvement of the level of medical services places new demands on the specialist's competencies, knowledge of a foreign language is an integral component professional speech competence of a medical worker.