Medical sector opposes cancellation of entrance exam

The Flemish medical sector is circulating a petition against the plan of federal public health minister Laurette Onkelinx to abolish the limit on the number of new doctors by allowing students to apply for studies in general practice or one of the bottleneck specialist professions without taking an entrance exam.

Onkelinx says that the measure is necessary to deal with the shortage of GPs, emergency doctors and geriatricians. Flemish universities, however, fear that the quality of education will suffer from the larger influx of students.

Jan Eggermont, vice-dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Leuven said that Onkelinx wants to regularise the surplus of doctors graduating in French-speaking Belgium, where there is no exam necessary to enter study programmes. By 2018, there would be a surplus of about 1,000 candidate-doctors in French-speaking Belgium. Through the new measure, they would receive the necessary accreditation from the medical insurance agency Riziv.

The ministry council will examine the proposal a second time before taking a final decision.