As a doctor and academic, Professor Gian Vincenzo Zuccotti, director of the Paediatrics department of the Buzzi Hospital and vice-rector for relations with the Health Institutions of the State University of Milan, is concerned above all about the organizational aspects of the new system of entry into medicine without entrance test.
«There is a capacity problem, because we don’t have classrooms large enough to accommodate everyone. And we don’t even have enough professors either to hold the courses or to have everyone take exams in good time, that is, within the first semester.”
However, in this way students are given the opportunity to test themselves, eliminating the infamous cross tests which in recent years have often been overwhelmed by appeals..
«Yes, but in any case a selection will have to be made in the end. It is not clear from the text how. But admission to the second semester is still subject to the achievement of a certain number of training credits. I imagine the enormous psychological pressure of these kids.”
In fact, the reform is very similar to the French model with a “guillotine” at the end of the first year, highly contested precisely because of the wild competition it triggers among students.
«Moreover, it is not clear how the merit ranking will be drawn up which will decide who gets in and who stays out. In the basic text we only talk about credits, but it’s one thing to get an 18 in anatomy, another thirty.”
Minister Bernini says that in the future the system will train around 30 thousand new doctors.
«There is the risk of moving from one excess to another. For years there has been a serious underestimation of healthcare needs, but the real funnel was represented above all by specialty schools, which until shortly before Covid made 3-4 thousand places available per year. Today, thanks also to Pnrr funds, we have reached 17 thousand. With this reform we move from a training funnel to a work funnel with too many doctors who risk not finding work.”
But sorry, our emergency rooms are gasping, there is a shortage of anesthetists, general practitioners and paediatricians.
“Very true. But the problem is that, even now that there are more places, these specialties are deserted: too onerous on a personal level, also due to legal responsibilities. Then there is the question of low salaries which are already pushing many doctors to pack their bags. There’s no point investing in training if we can’t retain them.”
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