The Order of Doctors will contact doctors who chose not to choose any specialty, to understand their reasons and prevent more vacancies from remaining unfilled in the SNS in future competitions, the president announced to Lusa today.
After understanding the causes that led doctors to make this decision, the Medical Association will establish a plan to hand over to the guardianship, said Carlos Cortes, on the day that a study on 'burnout' in young doctors was released.
The objective is to correct, with the help of the Ministry of Health, the deficiencies in this area, «so that what has been happening, increasingly in the National Health Service, does not happen again, which is that doctors do not even choose vacancies that are available” and that are “highly sought after specialties”.
The study carried out by the National Council of Internal Physicians (CNMI), between August and September, reveals that 55,3% of the inmates surveyed are at risk of developing 'burnout' and almost 25% already have severe symptoms of the syndrome.
Carlos Cortes expressed concern about these data and said that the Order is concerned about the situation of medical training, namely with the 406 vacancies that remained unfilled in the competitive procedure for admission to the 2023 Medical Internship.
In his opinion, this situation shows that there is a problem: «doctors do not feel attracted to the National Health Service, which does not provide them with adequate conditions not only to treat their patients, but also adequate training conditions».
To understand the problem, the Order is developing «a series of initiatives», including the study «Assessment of 'burnout' in the Portuguese medical internship» which shows that interns have a prevalence of severe burnout (24,7 %) more than three times higher than other doctors (7%).
"Intern doctors are often used to fill holes in scales", lamented the president, appealing to the Ministry of Health and the Executive Directorate of the SNS to provide "better training conditions for doctors", guaranteeing, for example, protected time for both training advisors and interns.
He also defended the possibility of developing research programs, «which are very important and help the development of the SNS», and providing conditions for interns to participate in courses, present work at congresses, which has been «increasingly difficult , even for the salaries that young doctors receive", since "a conference is usually very expensive".
«There should be greater attention from the SNS, from the Ministry of Health, to this issue of medical training and, in particular, to provide conditions for intern doctors to feel more fulfilled, more integrated and to feel that they actually have support in an area that is very sensitive. not only for them, but also for the country and the quality of healthcare», highlighted Carlos Cortes.
The president of the CNMI José Durão said that “the apparent lack of institutional and political will to try to act and reverse this situation is frightening.”
«There is a lot of lack of support here. Not only supporting people who are already in or close to this burnout situation, because we also have 55% at risk of experiencing severe burnout, but also taking action so that people don't reach that point", he highlighted.
José Durão argued that an intern must have “a balance between work demands and training requirements”, with a “protected period” for independent study in the 40 hours a week they have to do.
«At this moment, you are forced to do it in your free time, on weekends, on vacation, on days off, etc., which greatly worsens this state of 'burnout' in which the person no longer works 40 hours, he turns 50 or 60 or 70 and on top of that he will work overtime for his training», he lamented.
Comments