by Lorenzo Spadotto
02 NOV – Dear Director,
I have been a doctor with a degree for four years, I have undertaken a different training path, looking for it in the University Masters, in order to immediately start my own freelance activity. Would I be willing to do the General Medicine Course and contribute to the future of Territory Medicine? Of course, but it is not possible for me to give up what I have built.
The Ministry of Health has issued a Decree with which it eliminates the minimum score of 60 points in the competition for General Practitioner.
From the Minister’s point of view, this would act as an incentive for those who fail to score 60% (!) Of the test points, would be excluded. Writing these words, and I hope also reading them, can only arouse amazement and, perhaps, they should also raise fear in those who are certainly aware that a test cannot define a future professional, but that if after six years of studies in Medicine and Surgery you can’t score those points, maybe you have to go back to studying.
Does the Ministry really believe that the solution to the shortage of General Practitioners recently proposed in the press by the President of the Order of Doctors could be scraping the bottom of an already empty barrel?
In 2018, 23.1% of those enrolled in the Specific Training Course in General Medicine in 2017 retried the Specialty test (ALS data), a symptom of an evidently reduced course attractiveness, as demonstrated by the fact that every year numerous places remain vacant relating to the so-called “Calabria Decree” DL 35/2019, which would also guarantee access to those who in the past had been excluded from courses (good times of plenty …), by way of example only: in the relative call 2020 in Veneto 39 places out of 85 are still available.
How could it be otherwise? To the Doctor in General Medicine Course:
– a scholarship of 800-900 euros per month is paid, the Ministerial Decree of 7 March 2006 requires a commitment from the doctor “full time”, against a “part-time” fee – the comparison with fellow Trainees is merciless with a bag of more than the lower half;
– he is denied the possibility to carry out freelance activities, by virtue of the complete dedication to the Course, but he is allowed to carry out professional activities in Continuity Care, Replacement of General Medicine, Tourist Medicine and from June 2020, and until 31 December 2021, acquire temporary assignments in compliance with ACN rules;
– it is interesting to note, however, that trainees enrolled in supernumerary (Law 401/2000) are not affected by the incompatibilities listed above. In other words: if you receive the scholarship, then it matters that you are adequately trained (as long as the adequacy can be pedagogically linked to classroom attendance), otherwise it is not necessary.
Victim of a singular déjà-vu I ask myself: does anyone really care about training and its quality? Is it interested in training quality professionals or is the direction of health policy a simple course of contingency?
Create quality training courses, which evaluate the real skills of those who participate, without prior limits, completely freeing themselves from the concept of “signature and attendance sheet” which seems more to justify the presence of the teacher in the classroom than to enhance the quality thesis; the economic treatment of General Practitioners should be standardized to the Postgraduates and incomprehensible limitations to the free profession, a clear and tangible limit to participation in the Specific Training Course in General Medicine, should be removed.
We should stop hindering young people from entering the world of work, making them old in order to start working seriously.
Dr. Lorenzo Spadotto
Surgeon
November 02, 2021
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