Malgorzata Solecka: Can politicians be believed?

During a meeting of the Subcommittee on Science and Higher Education, the heads of departments of both ministries, who, acting jointly and in concert, to use a phrase that, all things considered, will be heard more and more often to describe the actions of those who made various kinds of decisions over the past few (?) years, designed and implemented solutions that devastate the system of educating future doctors, announced a change of direction. First, faculties opened without positive evaluation by the Polish Accreditation Commission are to be "frozen" - for the coming academic year they will not be included in the Health Minister's regulation on the limit of places. Second, work will begin - soon - on new educational standards, taking into account the demands of the medical community, so it can be assumed in advance that a large part of the neo-directives will not be able to meet them. Third, the Ministry of Science wants to "cancel" the amendments to the Law on Higher Education, which liberalized, beyond the limits of common sense and safety (of the system, patients, students themselves and future doctors) and restore the shape of the law from October 1, 2018. And the last news of the package: there will be changes to the LEK and L-DEK. The share of questions from the base will be reduced, and perhaps the base will disappear altogether. The reason is obvious - at the moment the exam, first of all, does not verify real knowledge, and secondly, the huge flattening of the results hinders meaningful recruitment to specialties.

Representatives of the medical community attending the meeting could not believe their eyes (and ears), rather accustomed - also during the not so distant in time sittings of other parliamentary bodies - to explaining that if they criticize the decisions of former ministers Przemysław Czarnek and Adam Niedzielski - they do not do so in the name of any "corporate interests" (such an accusation was made, indeed, by Law and Justice MPs, during the cited subcommittee meeting), but guided by responsibility for the level of medical care in the coming decades. A poorly educated doctor is a dangerous doctor - it seems so obvious. And this is the worse, and certainly sad, news. Because for several months, those currently in power have done a great deal to undermine confidence in their ability to make seemingly only possible and obvious decisions. Disbelief, undisguised surprise, even repeatedly making sure that surely the declarations were properly received - this is a measure of the loss of hope and trust that after the elections the world will no longer stand on its head. That there will not be a situation - to cite Prof. Marcin Gruchala, rector of GUM-ed and chairman of KRAUM - it will be enough to gather twelve graduates of AWF for the school to apply for approval to run a medical faculty. Which, now, in theory - stemming directly from the regulations - is, by all means, possible.