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Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director of Doctissimo)
On France Bleu Limousin, MP Frédérique Meunier (Les Républicains) announces that she has tabled a bill to give a “second chance” to medical students who have failed the competitive examination, in exchange for a commitment to settle in a medical desert. Good or bad idea ? The opinion of Dr Gérald Kierzek, medical director of Doctissimo.
Offer a “second chance” to medical students who have failed the competitive exam, in exchange for a commitment to becoming a general practitioner and working in a medical desert. This is the bill tabled by MP Frédérique Meunier, who explained her idea on the microphone of our colleagues from France Bleu Limousin.
Becoming a general practitioner in a tense area
The member explains the situation more precisely. “The problem of competitions where you have quotas, you have the one who fails for a minimum of points, for 0.2, 0.3 points. I am addressing those” she explains.
These students, “failed orally, could have a sort of second possibility, a second chance, to be able to continue their medical studies, provided that they commit to choosing general medicine and practicing it in academies in tense areas”.
Before adding: “This proposal can evolve, be improved, but the idea is to say we are giving you a second chance to prevent, for example, young people going abroad, which we are seeing more and more, and that we we’ll go look for them later“.
Having the possibility of doing medicine, in return for an obligation
Is this a solution to forcing students to come and settle in areas where there is a severe shortage of practitioners? “Yes, of course, but if we do nothing, we see all our territories, we see it in Brive, we see it in rural areas, with doctors disappearing, the attractiveness of our territories means that we will little by little deflate like balloons and die. It’s an obligation in return for an opportunity.” specifies the MP.
What would be the minimum duration of this installation obligation? The member puts forward the figure of ten years, “because it corresponded to the number of years of study, now it can be less, it can perhaps open up to other specialties like dentists. The bill can be amended, but the main thing is that it can exist”.
A double punishment for the populations, believes Dr Kierzek
Asked about this idea, Dr Gérald Kierzek, emergency doctor and medical director of Doctissimo does not share the MP’s point of view: “Access to care has two aspects: a quantitative side and a qualitative side, which must be equitable across the territory. There is no question of having ‘sub-doctors’ or doctors who would not have succeeded elsewhere, and of confining them to ‘poor’ regions. This would truly represent a double punishment for these populations who are already disadvantaged economically and in terms of health.”.
According to him, “The real problem of medical demographics is not so much a quantitative problem of increasing the number of doctors, but rather of a distribution over the territory, in specialties and in modes of practice, public or private.
According to Gérald Kierzek, the solution lies elsewhere: “We must therefore restore the attractiveness of healthcare professions and general medicine, offer diversified exercises and allow career development.” “Otherwise, everyone will go into aesthetic medicine!” he quips in conclusion.