Dominican medical universities are turning out more physicians than there are jobs for them in the Dominican Republic, according to an investigative report in Diario Libre.
“We are graduating more doctors than we can insert into the system. The number of students enrolled in the UASD Medicine School is more than you find in Argentina, a country with six times our population”, said Carolina de la Cruz Bassa, general director of medical residencies and post-graduate studies at the Ministry of Public Health. The UASD alone has 22,000 students registered in its Medical School and graduates around 2,000 physicians a year.
Dr. Nelson Rodriguez Monegro, director of the National Health Service (SNS), says that the DR needs around 500 to 600 physicians a year. He said there are around 2,600 graduates of the past two years waiting for jobs to do a medical specialty.
“Unfortunately the universities, because they are estranged from the working market, have become an industry of frustration for young professionals when these students finish their studies and cannot find jobs,” said Monegro. He said only a small number of physicians manage to leave the country to complete their preparation abroad.
He said for the past three years, the SNS receives on average 2,626 requests when there are only 1,840 jobs available. In 2017, 3,801 new graduates competed for 1,025 positions in internal medicine, pediatrics, gynecology and obstetrics and general surgery.
Centers offering medical studies in the Dominican Republic are the UASD, Universidad Pedro Henríquez Ureña (UNPHU), Universidad Iberoamericana, Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, Universidad Central del Este (San Pedro de Macorís), Universidad Católica Tecnológia del Cibao (Santiago), Pontificia Universidad Católic Madre y Maestra (Santiago), Universidad Tecnológica de Santiago, Universidad Católica Nordestana (San Francisco de Macorís).
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Diario Libre
5 July 2017
