Listen to the audio version of the article
The limited number in Medicine does not disappear but moves forward by six months. A first semester open to all will be followed by a second which will be accessible to aspiring white coats who have first passed the exams identified as preparatory and then a national quiz. This is foreseen by the proposal to reform programmed access developed by the Senate education commission which adopted it, practically unanimously, as the basic text. The news was announced by the President of the Commission, Roberto Marti (Lega), who expressed “great satisfaction for the adoption of the text” with the “maximum convergence of all political forces”. Meanwhile, this year’s admission tests will go ahead as scheduled. Over 71 thousand students registered for the tests (28 May and 30 July), more than 61 thousand in medicine. There are 7,862 students enrolled in veterinary medicine.
The key points
The provision gives the government a one-year mandate to write the reform in detail. Immediately foreseeing some guiding principles. The first consists in fact in the elimination of the limited number in the first semester with consequent movement of the selection to the beginning of the second. In the meantime, exams considered fundamental for the entire biomedical, veterinary, pharmaceutical and healthcare area must be taken and the required credits obtained. If you do not pass the test at the end of the first semester, the credits can be used for other similar degree courses.
The mechanism thus outlined closely resembles the one developed by the Conference of Rectors (Crui) in recent weeks and sent both to the University Minister, Anna Maria Bernini, and to the majority and opposition senators. For this project to be implemented, first of all, the basic text must become law and, therefore, the Mur must issue one or more legislative decrees with which to implement it. To achieve this within the next academic year, therefore, we need to run.
Convergence of political forces
«It was an intense work that found the maximum convergence of all the political forces – adds Roberto Marti – the hateful limited number that we have known in the last 25 years will no longer exist. A commitment that the League had made during the election campaign. A clear mandate which also represented a stimulus in the decision to take on the role of chairing the commission.” «We will thus offer our children – continues the senator – the possibility of freely enrolling in the faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine and starting a path that will allow them to have time and a way to orient themselves in the university world, which constitutes a great novelty for everyone. . Students will also have the opportunity to verify their vocation and demonstrate the skills acquired by studying the basic disciplines of these degree courses. Finally – concludes the president of the Education Commission – no longer a Russian roulette: we entrust the Government with full delegation to restore a system of common sense to the country”.
Students can freely enroll in a first semester
«I thank the FdI rapporteur, Senator Zaffini, for the work carried out in the select committee. The system introduced – underlined the Fdi senator, Carmela Bucalo, member of the Culture and Education Commission of the Senate and first signatory of the Legislative Decree 915 – provides the possibility for our students to freely enroll in a first semester of the master’s degree courses in Medina and surgery, dentistry and dental prosthetics and veterinary medicine. A crucial semester aimed at evaluating students on the basis of the profit obtained during the first scheduled exams. A semester in which students can be judged on real merit and their motivations, through a more inclusive and meritocratic system.”
Zaia: it was now the end of the limited number in Medicine
«It’s about time: the great surgeons and doctors are selected during the study process and then compare themselves in the operating room and in the ward. Certainly not with an absurd initial barrier with cross tests”, states the president of Veneto, Luca Zaia, commenting on the decision of the Select Committee of the Senate Education Commission to approve the basic text abolishing limited numbers in Medicine. «How many valid healthcare professionals could we have had in our hospitals – continues Zaia – without the medical entrance test? Instead, we find ourselves with a shortage of 50 thousand doctors in Italy and 3,500 in Veneto, due to wrong choices made from above at a national level in the past. For years, faced with the difficulties in finding doctors and the decrease in young people who want to undertake this difficult profession, I have been asking for an expansion of the recruitment base, which can only pass through easier access to the Faculty of Medicine, without departure dreams and vocations via quiz. It was really time for a change of pace.”