The revolt rumbles among the interns. The young doctors filed a strike notice and called for a day of mobilization, Friday, October 14, in front of the Ministry of Health and Prevention, from 2 p.m. In question: the will of the tenant of the avenue Duquesne, François Braun, to add a year of studies to the interns of general medicine, by encouraging them in particular to settle in a medical desert. The dissatisfaction has also spread among caregivers. Unions of doctors, pharmacists, or even the CFE-CGC and the CGT Santé, have announced that they are joining the movement. Franceinfo tells you all about the project.
1What does this reform consist of?
The Minister of Health wants to add a fourth year of internship for students in general medicine, which would bring to ten the minimum number of years of study to be carried out by general practitioners, instead of nine today.
Presented in the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS) for 2023, this “consolidation year” will stay “an incentive”tried to reassure the minister. “I don’t want it to be an obligation”, he said, Saturday, September 24, on the sidelines of a round table at the summer university for the start of the MoDem, in Guidel (Morbihan).
2 Why does the Minister want to extend the duration of studies?
This reform has two objectives: to perfect the medical curriculum and to fight against medical deserts. This fourth year “will make it possible to improve the training of young general practitioners. They tell us this themselves. Three years does not allow them to have a sufficient field of training, in particular in activities such as paediatrics, gynecology, obstetrics, but also on the possibility of learning to manage” a doctor’s office, explained François Braun at the microphone of franceinfo, September 27.
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
With regard to the fight against medical deserts, the Minister wishes to propose that this additional year be carried out outside the hospital and “priority in under-resourced areas”. But he specifies that “in the most difficult areas, which are the medical deserts, we are not going to send young recruits who are not, in quotation marks, not at all trained in combat”. To encourage them to stay once their internship is over, theThe government also intends to offer them accommodation on site.
3Why don’t the interns want it?
This additional year is experienced as a “injustice” by the Intersyndicale Nationale des Interns (Isni) and I‘Autonomous national inter-union representative of general medicine interns (l‘Isnar-IMG). According to Isni, this reform will not bring “no solution to the problems of access to care”. She also regrets “lack of coordination” from the executive. Its president, Olivia Fraigneau, contacted by franceinfo, accuses the minister “to instrumentalize doctors in training to respond at a lower cost” to the problem of medical deserts.
“Contrary to what the minister says, the students do not want this fourth year.”
Olivia Fraigneau, president of Isniat franceinfo
“If we want to do a tenth year of training, it has to be a trainer. Sending us only to under-dense areas means sending us to places where, by definition, we have no trainers” , has regretted Raphaël Presneau, the president of Isnar-IMG, on September 24 on franceinfo.
4 Is their movement supported?
In addition to Isni and Isnar-IMG, several unions have announced that they are joining the strike and the Parisian demonstration, including the CFE-CGC and the CGT Santé. This is also the case for Young Doctors and Avenir Jeunes Hôpital Pharmaciens, who filed a strike notice on 14 October. This additional year of studies is considered counter-productive, “because it delays the installation of young general practitioners in our territories” and “precarizes students whose remuneration will be much lower than that of a doctor installed in the same territory for equivalent work”, they justify in a press release.
For its part, the Generalists-Confederation of French medical unions also announced its support for the interns’ strike. These latter “must be accompanied by one or two doctors“ and “welcomed in medical homes, multi-professional health homes”, judged the president of the organization, Luc Duquesnel, general practitioner in Mayenne, on franceinfo, on September 24. According to him, if this reform “should lead to sending interns, who are not yet doctors, to areas where there is no one, they will stop medicine”.