It is a reality that during the last decades health has been neglected in our country. As a consequence, there is currently a deficit of 77 thousand specialists. That is why the National Examination of Applicants for Medical Residencies (ENARM) 2020 had several changes to seek to solve this problem. The downside is that some were misleading and insufficient.
In the first instance, last year the places granted doubled. Thanks to this, around 18,000 general practitioners found a place to do their specialty. Never before have so many spaces been offered for the training of health professionals.
Good or bad idea?
Although there was also another change that to date is one of the most controversial that has occurred. For the first time, a thousand scholarships were offered to do the specialty abroad. It was all thanks to an alliance with the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt). From the announcement there were great expectations in the young people but when they learned the complete plan, many were disappointed.
It all started when after presenting the ENARM 2020 it was specified that the scholarship proposal only applied to six specialties. While what caused the greatest discomfort is that there was only one country with which an agreement was reached to send Mexican doctors: Cuba.
Therefore, many of the doctors who approved the ENARM and obtained the scholarship had to reject it. At the beginning they were told that there would be several nations to choose from and continue with their professional training and In the end it was not like that. While in other cases they were conditioned to change the specialty they had selected and will adjust to this proposal.
The vast majority of doctors rejected the scholarship
As a result, according to what was published by the newspaper The reasonOf the thousand scholarships offered, only 184 were accepted by the young people. With this it is obtained that 816 spaces were wasted.
While in a broken down way, the places to do the specialty in Cuba were as follows:
- Pathological Anatomy – 22
- Epidemiology – 28
- Geriatrics – 68
- Rehabilitation – 58
- Psychiatry – 8
Something that is striking is that none of the general practitioners chose the Emergency option, which was also available.
While another aspect to highlight is that as indicated by the Ministry of Health (SSa) and the Interinstitutional Commission for the Training of Human Resources in Health (CIFRHS), those who got the scholarship and did not accept it lost their place. For this reason, they were forced to register for ENARM 2021 and at the end of September they will have to take the exam.
While it should be added that this year a thousand scholarships will be offered again, although the difference is that now the complete information has been published from the beginning. The conditions are the same so they are only available for six specialties and the only country with which the agreement was reached is Cuba.