Angel Sanchez and Pablo Mejia.
The creation of sections for non-EU physicians in some medical schools in Catalonia makes the leap to other provinces and autonomous communities of the State The organization of the Official College of Doctors of Tarragona (COMT), pioneer in shaping this initiative, and the College of Doctors of Barcelona (COMB), will soon be joined by a homologous section in Asturiasthus becoming the first autonomous community to achieve it.
Although the idea arose in Tarragona, it spread to Barcelona and the following provinces to carry out the same measure due to proximity and arguments of the promoters might have been Girona and Lleida with their respective medical colleges to form the section of non-EU doctors of Catalonia, currently the most advanced territories are, in addition to Asturias, the Community of Madrid and La Coruña.
As with medical colleges, the goal is have a section for non-EU doctors in each of them and, therefore, that all non-community physicians are represented in the bodies of their provinces. Each Governing Board has its statutes and it depends on which one accepts the initiative in one way or another and there are more or less demanding requirements. “Some are reluctant to change”wield close sources and who follow up on these movements.
Creation of the section in Asturias
the internist Angel Sanchez He is one of the people who is carrying out the process of creating the section for non-EU doctors in Asturias, in the Illustrious Official College of Physicians of Asturias (Icomast). The doctor, originally from Venezuela, explains that the process of collecting signatures is already underway to pass part to the Governing Board and thus be able to debate and validate the creation of this body.
“We want to try unite non-EU doctors to help each other“, recounts Sánchez in an interview with Medical Writing. The doctor details that there are universities that he knows of in Venezuela whose training programs are recognized by the Ministry of Education and the homologation of the degree is easier compared to other centers, but this body will release this information, which not everyone knows, as well as aspects of membership or the MIR. “It is a meeting point to organize ourselves,” he says.
Sanchez estimates that 20 percent of doctors who currently work in the health of Asturias are extra-community, so they might benefit and be part of the section of non-EU doctors. The purpose is to have “a more official body that provides more help and collaboration”, Add. The Icomast statutes establish that the Board of Directors is the one who decides if a new section should be formed, so Sánchez and other people are immersed in collecting signatures and will foreseeably send them to the management in january.
The internist describes the reality of a non-EU doctor in his autonomous community and points out that general practitioners have the same problems as their Spanish counterparts, but they do with specialist doctors, “whose recognition process is characterized by slowness“. Sánchez concludes that “the National Health System needs doctors and it is not going to get them in the same way by waiting to train them as if already have trained doctorsperhaps with less training time but twenty years of exercise and, therefore, prepared“.
La Coruña, in the footsteps of Asturias
The next most advanced province in the procedures to create its section for non-EU doctors is La Coruña. Pablo Mejía, from the Official College of Physicians of the Province of A Coruña, advances that he has already spoken with the president of the organization and has urged them to request this initiative through a letter signed by all those members who are in favor.
Mejía affirms that the idea is that this section brings together “not only non-EU doctors who have not been able to standardize the specialty, but also those who have completed the MIR, even if they have professional training outside the European Union.” Having seen the evolution of the creation of this section in La Coruña, the forecast is to test the possibility of carrying out the same initiative in the rest of the Galician provinces.
“The objective of the section is that we can give support and try to solve the concerns and problems of the doctors who are here and the colleagues who come,” he adds. “Being a group as large as we are at the moment and growing even more, it is important that someone represents us within the College of Physiciansto listen to us and we are left to solve our problems”, highlights Mejía.
The Illustrious Official College of Physicians of Madrid (Icomem) might also be added to these two regions, which would make a total of five medical colleges with a section for non-EU physicians. Thus, these professionals would also advance in their most ambitious goal of have representation in the General Council of Official Colleges of Physicians (Cgcom).
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