There are over 65 thousand aspiring white coats who today, Tuesday 6 September, will take the entrance test to the medical faculty. This is the last act for the “contest” with quiz shots that detractors have long defined as a lottery. Next year, however, changes: from 2023 there will be selection paths that can start from the fourth year of high school, with self-assessment tests and tests that can be repeated. But other news, even more important, could be around the corner given that some parties – among all Lega and Fratelli d’Italia – are for the definitive overcoming of the limited number and given that at the moment the polls give them in the head for the future Government cannot exclude that access to Medicine becomes free even if with some precautions (selection in the first year), as in the French model. A hypothesis that the Medical Association rejects, however, because after years of serious shortage of white coats the “free all”, with the abolition of the limited number, could result in a bubble of graduates and therefore a plethora of doctors.
The charge of the 65 thousand
Meanwhile, 65,378 students are competing for 16,070 places – 14,740 for medicine and 1,330 for dentistry. The possibility of overcoming the wall is 1 to 4. The available places have been increased (700 more) compared to last year when, for the medical faculty, there were 14,020 to which were added the 1,136 reserved for candidates from non-European countries, residing abroad. Candidates will have to answer 60 questions in 100 minutes. Specifically, the test will consist of 4 questions on reading skills, 5 on logical reasoning, 23 on biology, 15 on chemistry and 13 on physics and mathematics. More questions on biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics and less on logic and general culture, as established by the decree, signed at the end of June by Minister Maria Cristina Messa.
The same decree also provides for the new procedures for the selection of places in Medicine. The idea is to start a selection process in stages. Students will be able to choose the best score to be included in the ranking. Students will be able to repeat the test up to four times. Entry will thus be subject to passing the “Tolc”, an acronym that stands for “Cisia online test”. Cisia is an inter-university consortium of Integrated Systems for Access, which includes 56 universities.
The unknown of the elections
So far the possible “tweaks” to the entrance test to Medicine. Because if the outcome of the polls on 25 September confirms a statement by the center-right, as the polls have so far announced, a real revolution could also be triggered. The leader of the Lega Matteo Salvini has returned to reiterate his opposition to the limited number: “It must be abolished and given the opportunity for everyone to register, then it will be meritocracy to keep our children going”. In fact, the Lega program speaks of the possibility for everyone to enroll and attend a common first semester, at the end of which they can take a test. Students who pass it will be able to complete their enrollment in the course, while all the exams taken for other degree courses will be recognized for the others. On the same line, Fratelli d’italia, which in its program calls for “the overcoming of the system of access to the faculties with a limited number of numbers” with “access for all to the first year and selection for the passage to the second year”.
The Order’s perplexities about “free all”
These hypotheses, however, do not convince those directly concerned, that is, the doctors. According to the Order, the access modalities can be revised without renouncing correct planning, defining the needs of doctors and calculating, on the basis of this, the admissions to the faculty and then the corresponding specialization grants, otherwise there is a “risk to pass from deficiency to excess, with the risk of a new medical plethora », warns the president of Fnomceo Filippo Anelli.