The objective set by the former Prime Minister to increase the number of second-year medical students from 10,800 to 16,000 by 2027 is not “not realistic”this «augmentation massive» requiring “five to ten years”the main representative of the deans of medicine estimated on Thursday. In April, Gabriel Attal had announced a series of measures to deal with the growing shortage of doctors in France. In particular, he had promised to recruit 12,000 second-year medical students (after the entrance exam at the end of the first year) from 2025 – instead of 10,800 in 2023 – then 16,000 from 2027.
“It just wasn’t realistic. It’s a ramp-up that has to happen over five to ten years.”said the president of the Conference of Deans of Medicine, Benoit Veber, at a press conference on Thursday. “Everyone agrees” on the fact that it is necessary “train more doctors” et “We will support this increase, but with a multi-year vision, with a spreading of it, to maintain the quality of training”he said, calling on the State to support the faculties, “in terms of means” human and financial.
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“Saturated” faculties
“You don’t train academics overnight. It takes time to have professors and lecturers capable of properly supervising our students.”he continued. The pace of ramp-up will depend “means that will be allocated”he added. Student numbers have already increased by 20% in four years, recalled Benoit Veber, and the faculties “are clearly saturated”. “The university libraries are too small, the Crous are too small, the lecture halls are too small and there are not enough small rooms for teaching in small groups”he listed.
The new oral tests for the sixth-year competition (which determines the medical specialty of interns) “consume” Moreover “lots of locals”. The trainings are finally “very professional” et “are done quickly in alternation, that is to say in internship”he added. “We must give ourselves time,” he argued, wishing to rely on, in addition to the university hospitals that will remain.”the flagship of the training“, at a number of other internship locations”public and possibly private“in which”“future internship supervisors will have to be trained”.
