A tenth year of study to become a general practitioner, the main internal unions strongly oppose it. A call for a strike is launched on Friday October 14 to ask the government to abandon this measure provided for in article 23 of the social security financing bill of 2023. A rally is scheduled for 2 p.m. in front of the Ministry of Health. in Paris and demonstrations will be organized in several cities of France including Lyon, Nantes and Bordeaux, with a watchword: “The coercionit’s no”.
>> Health: four questions about the reform of general medicine studies which arouses the anger of interns
Raphaël Presneau, president of ISNAR-IMG, the national union representing general medicine interns, wonders. “For years, it has been considered that general practitioners are well trained in 9 years and suddenly, they absolutely need 10 years to be well trained. Why? Interns do not ask to have this tenth year of study.
Another subject of dissatisfaction, the Minister of Health wishes to encourage the 11,000 interns in general medicine to carry out this year of additional study in a medical desert. Raphaël Presneau believes that this does not make sense. “We will not be able to go, as interns, in territories where there is no doctor since, by definition, we are students and therefore staff in training. We will therefore have to be supervised”.
“It is out of the question that nurseries of interns develop where interns consult alone in the premises, without a referring doctor.”
Raphael Presneaufranceinfo
“It is neither more nor less than a disguise for an additional year of exploitation of the interns”, denounces the ISNAR-IMG union in a press release. Raphaël Presneau repeats that interns in general medicine are “staff in training”. In fact, he explains that interns cannot ensure consultations “without a referring doctor in the same building, to whom they can ask questions”.
>>> Year of internship in medical deserts: “It is not a question of endangering” the interns, otherwise “they will stop medicine”, warns a union
The ISNAR-IMG union judges “unacceptable to weigh the difficulties of access to care on interns still in training”. The Minister of Health François Braun assures that this is not the will of the government. The lengthening of the duration of theboarding school for general medical studies “is made to improve the training of general practitioners, absolutely not to solve the problem of medical deserts”he said on franceinfo on September 27.
The minister nevertheless admitted that the government does indeed wish “urge very strongly” students to go to medical deserts, offering them, among other things, a “different pay”. He specified that it would be “not an obligation”. François Braun explained that this incentive would make it possible to “partly respond” to the shortage of doctors in certain territories “since there is no miracle solution”.
One more year of internship ➡️ “This 4th year is made to improve their training”, defends François Braun. well-trained internship.” pic.twitter.com/WMq18SRPuT
— franceinfo (@franceinfo) September 27, 2022
The internal unions are convinced that these measures will be counterproductive. According to them, medical students may no longer choose the general medicine specialty.