This Friday, October 14, medical students are mobilizing everywhere in France at the call of their trade unions. Students and interns from Lyon, Grenoble and Saint-Etienne demonstrate in Lyon. What are their demands?
“The medical internship is the last phase of medical studies, currently it lasts at least 3 years. It is a phase of specialization before the exercise and before the thesis. The studies in medicine are long: at least 9 years for general medicine and will be 10 years if this account never passes “ abstract Mohamed-Amin Ben-Kraiem. This representative of Lyon Est medical students is currently in his 3rd year.
The Social Security Funding Bill (PLFSS) is blowing up student organizations and medical interns. It integrates the one-year extension of studies in general medicine. General medicine has recently become a specialty with 3 years of internship. Another point goes to crystallize the anger of these future doctors: this fourth year would be accomplished “priority in areas where medical demographics are sparse”, according to the draft social security budget for 2023.
For Mohamed-Amin Ben-Kraiem, this 4th year of internship for future general practitioners “it is offered in non-pedagogical conditions and with a strong incentive to practice it in rural areas”.
The settlement of interns, still in training, in areas in tension, is experienced as a “false good idea” from these future health professionals. And the representative of the medical students of Lyon Est justifies himself:
“Why do we refuse to go to medical deserts? Today 87% of the territory is a medical desert. The problem is not a problem of distributing doctors, but a problem of numbers: we don’t have enough doctors on the territory. The simple fact of distributing them differently will not solve the problem
Mohamed-Amin Ben-KraiemRepresentative of the medical students of East Lyon
The fears of medical students: that this reform is counterproductive. They fear that the “general medicine” specialty will become less attractive as a result of this reform. This would ultimately lead to a decline in the number of general practitioners in the area. The opposite of the desired effect.
Medical deserts do not appeal to these liberal doctors, attached to freedom of installation. Many do not consider opening a studio in a rural area. The reasons given are many. Interns as well as young graduate doctors all report the same problems: extra work but above all isolation, away from other health workers. An isolation that rhymes with less efficiency in patient care. There is also the problem of the spouse or the difficulty of finding a replacement.
Today, with this bill, even medical students fear the loss of this precious freedom of settlement. For the representative of the Lyon Est medical students, constitute these bills and amendments that want to regulate the structures of doctors “a danger to the health system!”
The national Intersyndicale of interns (Isni) and that of general medicine interns (Isnar-IMG) oppose the project and ask for it to be withdrawn. Discussed this week in the National Assembly, the contested article was validated by the deputies of the Social Affairs Commission, with some formal amendments, in particular on supervision of the students by the internship supervisors who work in the same “basin of life”.
For Mohamed-Amin Ben-Kraiem the lack of supervisors for these future general practitioners is obvious, the reform will only make the situation worse
Today we already lack the supervisors of university internships. If we ever add a year, we should find 3,500 college internship supervisors.
Isni denounces a reform destined to “exploit junior doctors to respond at a lower cost” problems with access to care e “carried out without consulting the main stakeholders”.
An appeal for a national strike of students of the 2nd and 3rd cycle of medical studies from this Friday, October 14, 2022. In Lyon, students are mobilized.
The Minister of Health, François Braun, defends him for his part “year of consolidation” and ensures that it will not include coercive measures, but aims to “to support future doctors for an installation in the best conditions”.
