How are doctors being educated in Poland today? Conclusions from the latest NIL report

The Supreme Medical Chamber on Friday presented the results of the next edition of the report on medical and medical-dental education. The report was based on a survey conducted by the NIL among 19 universities providing education or obtaining authorizations for education in medical and medical-dental faculties for the 2023/24 academic year. The survey included - roughly in half - universities under the Ministry of Health ("old" universities, universities with traditions) and universities under the Ministry of Science ("new" universities). The launch of medical faculties at most of the new universities was made possible, as emphasized at the conference, by lowering teaching standards. However, as Damian Patecki said, the intention of the previous government was to "produce" a large number of doctors.

- As a medical self-government, we do not oppose the very idea of new universities, we fight for quality. Students in these faculties will be our future colleagues for whom the local government will take professional responsibility. We want to avoid a situation where young doctors will fear for the safety of patients due to deficiencies in education," said a representative of the medical self-government, assuring that the report is not aimed at ranking universities or medical faculties. - Our survey is in fact probably the only such cross-sectional tool in Poland that attempts to analyze all these universities. We are grateful to all the universities that participated in this survey. The project was voluntary, also some of the universities, knowing that they might perform poorly in this survey, nevertheless took the trouble and answered all the questions in detail.

Questions about the quality of education at universities take on a special dimension in the face of the announcement that internships will be shortened, but ultimately probably abolished. These plans are strongly opposed by the local government. - We are of the opinion that the abolition of the internship should not take place, because even the so-called old medical universities today have a problem with providing students with an adequate number of practical classes. In recent years, the size of student groups has increased significantly, and it has become increasingly difficult for students to acquire the practical skills that they can get on internship. The internship was such a period in which doctors made up for practical deficiencies in their training," he explained. The only reason for the internship to disappear, according to Damian Patecki, is the need to find savings.

The results of the survey were presented by Artur Bialoszewski, an academic lecturer and NRL expert on research and analysis. What are the findings?

Number of students: The burden of education rests with traditional universities, which educate the lion's share of all medical students.

Teaching staff: The new universities have more staff per number of students (35) than the traditional ones (27). However, this is primarily an effect of scale - the "new" universities educate tens or hundreds of people, the old ones even a few thousand. In absolute numbers, it is the traditional universities that have an incomparably larger pool of experienced doctors, doctors and professors.

Group size: The questionnaires distinguished between clinical and seminar group sizes. The clinical group size ranged from 4 (WUM) to 24 students (GUMed). The most common clinical group size was 6 students - ten universities reported such a maximum number. The seminar group ranged from 20 to 36 students.

Preclinical shortages: Some universities reported shortages in staffing and in areas such as biochemistry, pathomorphology or pathophysiology.

Clinical facilities: - We don't see much disparity in the distribution of teaching beds between the old and new universities. Just as we see a significant disparity in other areas, in this case the new universities have about the same bed base. However, universities with a tradition mainly have their own resources, their own hospitals, while in the new universities this is based on a foreign base. The lack of influence on potential management of staff and resources not in their clinical base also has a significant impact on the quality of education and on the selection of staff, the expert pointed out.

Scientific potential of medical faculty: In terms of projects and publications, traditional universities dominate by a ratio of nine to one.