While the process of the National Examination of Applicants for Medical Residences (ENARM) 2021 is being maintained, various doubts have been generated. On the one hand, the new process for choosing a specialty has caused confusion and annoyance among applicants. Everything is due to the constant failures that the platform presents. But there is also another aspect that has generated multiple doubts. It is about the promise of offering a total of 30 thousand places.
In recent years there have been changes in the test and the largest occurred in 2020. For the first time, the places granted for residency were doubled. In this way, for the first time in history, 18 thousand places were offered. In this way, the acceptance percentage reached 42 percent.
Promise impossible to keep?
While for ENARM 2021 it was promised that this trend would continue. Through a newsletter The Ministry of Health (SSa) assured that 30 thousand places will be granted for 27 different specialties. This figure includes a thousand scholarships for Cuba, as was done last year.
The specialties offered are: pathological anatomy, anesthesiology, audiology, otoneurology and speech therapy, quality of clinical care, general surgery, epidemiology, medical genetics, geriatrics, gynecology and obstetrics, diagnostic and therapeutic imaging.
Also, physical and sports activity medicine, rehabilitation medicine, emergency medicine, occupational and environmental medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, legal medicine, nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, preventive medicine, pulmonology, ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology and surgery of head and neck, clinical pathology, pediatrics, psychiatry, radiation oncology, as well as traumatology and orthopedics.
But beyond good intentions, the numbers don’t seem to match reality. At this time, the specialty selection process is being maintained. As we informed you in advance, through a Telegram channel the number of applicants who have already chosen their option is reported in real time. Until this October 18, there are around 17 thousand young people who have already concluded the procedure.
However, one of the drawbacks is that the only authority that can provide official information is the Interinstitutional Commission for the Training of Human Resources in Health (CIFRHS). Although, as in past editions, it has not published statistical data on what happened. It will be until the folios of the accepted doctors are made known that the total number and by specialty of places granted will be known.
Similarly, doubts have been generated because during the last 12 months not enough hospitals have been inaugurated in the country to think about a new increase in places for residents. Therefore, going from the 18 thousand of 2020 to the promised 30 thousand this 2021 does not seem likely.