2023-12-08 02:00:52
Doctors interested in postgraduate studies now have a new option direct entry specialty and it is Palliative Medicine. The objective is to train personnel capable of developing a professional practice of high scientific quality, with a deep humanistic sense and a social vocation for service, and who integrate research and educational activities into their expert work.
In this way, it becomes the 28th direct entry medical specialty. The only way to access this option is through the National Examination of Aspirants to Medical Residencies (ENARM) and will be available from 2024.
With the approval of the University Council of the Plan and the Program, the Single Plan for Medical Specializations (PUEM). What it specifies is that it will be taught in the school system in person. Its duration will be three years in which 693 credits must be covered, which correspond to 12 mandatory academic activities.
Where will the Palliative Medicine specialty be taught?
This new study plan will begin to be taught in the “Manuel Gea González” General Hospital. The decision was made by considering its relevance in the field of knowledge of the specialization, benefiting from its experience, as well as its human and material resources. Subsequently, it may be carried out in medical units that have the requirements stipulated by the Faculty of Medicine to host the specializations.
The PUEM Modification Project states that in Mexico there is a very large gap in access to Palliative Medicine for the care of sick people who are at the end of life. It points out that according to the Official Gazette of the Federation (2014) in the country there is a lack of service infrastructure of 79 percent, there is a major opioid shortagelack of training for primary, secondary and tertiary care, despite the fact that there has been legislation established on the matter since 2009.
In this sense, the document highlights that higher education institutions such as the UNAM are responsible for participating in the design of study plans and programs, and health institutions are responsible for providing the clinical diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitation scenarios required for the optimal training of specialized staff.
Why is a Palliative Medicine specialty necessary?
The Project also highlights that our country has to face the demographic and epidemiological transition through a change in health care, taking into account that annually there are about 468 thousand people with serious health-related suffering, which means almost 230 thousand deaths and 37 percent of national mortality, according to the Lancet Commission on Global Access to Palliative Care and Pain Relief.
That is, a wide range of people require palliative care: adults with chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease (38.5 percent), cancer (34 percent), AIDS (5.7 percent) and diabetes (4.6 percent). Although other conditions may also require palliative care, such as kidney failure, chronic liver diseases, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, neurological diseases, dementia, congenital anomalies, and drug-resistant tuberculosis.
Studies carried out in our country by Human Rights Watch They agree that access to palliative care services is limited, among the reasons being the few public institutions that offer them.
Few studies of Palliative Medicine in Mexico
Of the nation’s 32 states, seven do not have any type of palliative care service; In five they only exist in the capital of each state; Only in Mexico City and in Durango, Jalisco and Guanajuato is there access through the National Institute of Health and Welfare, the Mexican Institute of Social Security and the Institute of Health and Social Services of State Workers, with hospitals that have with palliative care units or pain clinics.
Likewise, training for health personnel in this discipline is minimal, since of the 111 medical schools that exist, only six offer courses on palliative care in undergraduate studies; In two of them they are mandatory.
List with the 28 direct entry medical specialties that now exist in Mexico
Pathological anatomy. Anesthesiology. Audiology, Otoneurology and Phoniatrics. Quality of Clinical Care. General Surgery. Epidemiology. Medical Genetics. Geriatrics. Gynecology and Obstetrics. Imaging, Diagnostics and Therapeutics. Medicine of Physical and Sports Activity. Rehabilitation Medicine. Emergency Medicine. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Family Medicine. Internal Medicine. Legal Medicine. Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. Palliative Medicine Preventive Medicine. Pneumology. Ophthalmology. Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery. Clinical Pathology. Pediatrics. Psychiatry. Radio Oncology. Traumatology and orthopedics.
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