1,510 fewer intern positions at the start of the school year

According to figures published in the Official Journal at the beginning of July, there will be half as many positions open in plastic surgery and -15% for emergency medicine.

There will be 1,510 fewer open positions in hospitals for the new class of medical interns at the start of the school year, according to information from franceinfo. This class will take up its duties in November and has passed the internship competition in recent months. But there will be 7,974 open positions this fall, compared to 9,484 in 2023. These figures were published on July 9 in the Official Journal.

Note some disparities according to specialties: half as many positions open in plastic surgery, -18% for ophthalmology and general medicine, -15% for emergency medicine. This decrease in supply is caused, according to the government, by a decrease in the number of candidates, who after six years of study, were much fewer in number to apply for the competitive examinations to begin the internship.

Except that according to information from franceinfo, many people boycotted the exam and preferred to repeat it so as not to be part of a promotion. “crash test” : the first to have passed the competition in its new version, after the reform of the second cycle of health studies. The latter establishes, among other things, a cut-off mark of 14 out of 20 for the written exam. “It is normal to adapt the number of positions available to the number of candidates in order to maintain the same requirement”responds the Ministry of Higher Education.

For their part, medical students have created an online petition. It currently has over 7,000 signatures. According to these future interns, this new distribution of positions, which has been fairly stable up until now, is a game changer. Some specialties are being reduced more than others and are becoming less accessible. The elimination of intern positions in hospitals is not unprecedented, but it has never caused such an upheaval, says Baptiste Sabatier, vice-dean of medical students at Paris-Cité.

The last fear is that of a deterioration in working conditions: fewer interns next year, but just as many shifts to share. The government assures that in the event of understaffing, hospital services will hire doctors with special status, acting interns (FFI), i.e. doctors from abroad, less expensive and sometimes less well trained.