2023-08-17 10:41:54
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Thousands of young Latin Americans, especially Brazilians, choose to train as doctors in Argentina.
Article informationAuthor, Veronica Smink*Role, BBC News Mundo, Argentina
1 hour
In the last two decades, Argentina has been a magnet for young people from Latin America who want to pursue a university degree.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), it is the country in the region with the largest number of international students.
The Argentine Ministry of Education estimates that the number of foreign university students has quadrupled since 2006, reaching almost 118,000 in 2021, the most recent figure (this is equivalent to 4.3% of all students in the university system).
The vast majority -96%- are Latin American and one of the most popular careers is Medicine.
It is the one chosen by the majority of young Brazilians who arrive from the neighboring country, who represent the largest contingent of foreign students (more than a quarter in undergraduate courses).
Although there are also students from many other countries -Peruvians are the second largest group in undergraduate courses, followed by Colombians, Bolivians, Paraguayans and Venezuelans- the number of Brazilians studying Medicine in Argentina is striking.
After all, unlike the rest of the Latin Americans, they speak another language.
And they don’t just have that extra challenge. Those who graduate from an Argentine university must then revalidate their degree to be able to practice in their country.
Why then is it so popular to study Medicine in Argentina?
Cheaper
One of the reasons is the cost.
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In Argentina, public undergraduate education is free, even for foreigners.
While in Brazil and other countries in the region the vast majority of university students end up studying at a private university due to the difficulty of obtaining a place in the few state institutions, Argentina is famous for its large public higher education system.
Institutions like the prestigious University of Buenos Aires (UBA) are free for undergraduate students, even if they are foreigners.
There are also renowned public universities in other Argentine cities such as La Plata, Rosario and Córdoba.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Education, three quarters of foreign students in undergraduate and graduate courses opt for state-run universities.
At the UBA, international students represent 9.5% of the total, according to that institution. But there are other smaller universities where the percentage of foreigners is much higher.
The Clarín newspaper reported at the beginning of the year that one of every two students who enrolled this year in the Faculty of Medicine of the National University of La Plata (UNLP) came from abroad.
Free education was one of the reasons that led Brazilian Nattascha Dumke, 30, to move to the Argentine capital to continue her medical studies.
Nattascha told BBC Mundo Brasil that, since he was trained in a Brazilian public school, “he did not have a good foundation” to get a place at a public university in his country.
And he also had no capacity to pay for a private one, which in Brazil and in many countries in the region are beyond the reach of many middle-class or working-class families.
“Private (universities) started at 8,000 reais (regarding US$1,700) and there were some that cost 12,000 reais (US$2,500),” Nattascha said.
He did the numbers and estimated that if he didn’t have to pay for college, he might rent a nice apartment in Buenos Aires and live for less than he would have spent paying for his studies in his country of origin.
In 2018 he packed his bags and began to study Medicine at the UBA.
image copyrightNattascha Dumke
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Nattascha Dumke studies Medicine in Buenos Aires since 2018.
weak weight
Like her, many of the Latin Americans who came to pursue a degree in Argentina not only take advantage of free education. They also take advantage of the advantageous exchange rate, which is very favorable for foreigners, making the cost of living low.
And it is that the Argentine peso is, following the Venezuelan bolivar, the currency that has devalued the most in Latin America in the last two decades.
Thanks to this, those who come from abroad find that renting and eating in this country is cheaper than in their own.
This is the experience of 22-year-old María Alice de Oliveira, who arrived in the city of Rosario shortly before the covid-19 pandemic to study medicine.
Maria Alice told BBC News Brazil that even paying for a private university and not being able to work due to her heavy study load, she might have a good quality of life spending less than US$700 a month.
The same calculation was made by Mariel Ramos, a 33-year-old from Paraná, who studies Medicine at night at the Inter-American Open University (UAI) to be able to work during the day.
“I pay 1,000 reais (regarding US$210) a month for my university and that was the best option for me. I have a very active social life, I like good restaurants,” he told regarding his experience living in the Argentine capital.
image copyrightMariel Ramos
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Mariel Ramos must work to support herself, but she assures that she lives well on less than US$700 a month.
They are not the only ones who have found that their accounts are closed even when they have to pay for a private university: statistics show that almost 40% of Brazilians who study in Argentina attend a private institution.
Among them is Nattascha herself, who following three years at the UBA felt that it lacked a bit of structure and switched to the Fundación Barceló School of Medicine, where she began to pay US$125 a month.
easy access
But, that it is cheap is not the only incentive to study in Argentina. Nor is it the most important for many.
The main advantage most cited by foreign students consulted by the BBC regarding why they study in this country is its accessibility.
While in the rest of the region difficult entrance exams are usually taken to enter the best universities, most Argentine universities, especially the public ones, have a much less demanding system.
Entering students must take a course where they learn a certain number of subjects – a “common basic cycle”, which can last from a few months to a year – and once they pass these subjects they can start their specific career.
“At my university I took an entrance course that had subjects involving Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Anatomy and for foreigners there is Spanish,” said Maria Alice, who studies Medicine at the Italian University Institute of Rosario.
According to her, if she had stayed in Brazil, she would have had to invest “six years in the preparation course, because that is the average to pass (the entrance exam) in a public university.”
Diogo Alves Schmidt, 20, tried the “frantic” Brazilian pre-university preparatory course before deciding to cut his losses and start Medicine at the UBA.
“I had a rhythm in the preparatory course that today I consider extremely toxic, and that mental health consumes you. The best thing is not to have entrance exams,” he stated.
image copyrightDiogo Alves Schmidt
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Diogo Alves Schmidt tried studying in Brazil before opting for Buenos Aires.
For her part, Gabriela Landini, 18, who also studies Medicine at the UBA, said she knew “people who took a preparatory course for four years, gave up and changed careers.”
Quality
Another factor highlighted by those who study in Argentina is the good quality of teaching.
It is one of the virtues that AC Estudios en el exterior stands out, a Colombian consultancy that -as its name suggests- advises those who want to pursue a career outside their country. His website has several videos that promote studying Medicine in Argentina.
In one of them, Katherin Martel, a Peruvian who used the services of the consultant to start studying Medicine at the UBA in 2022, states that “one of the benefits of studying in Argentina is the academic aspect of offering you one of the best universities within Latin America”.
Martel praises the “academic demand” of the Argentine public university, highlighting its good infrastructure, with “very comfortable environments and free Internet access in many of them”, which provides “the possibilities and all the tools to be able to study “.
The young woman, who comes from the Department of Junín, in central Peru, also highlights that getting to the university and moving around Buenos Aires is easy, since there is a great public transport network, something that also exists in the other university cities that has the country
Lastly, she cites the fourth great reason why she and many of her peers choose to study in Argentina, in addition to cost, accessibility, and quality: “the country gives you the opportunity to work,” she highlights, referring to what easy it is to obtain documentation as a temporary resident, which allows you to work legally.
In this -he details- the “flexibility of schedules” offered by institutions such as the UBA also helps, which allow one to choose “what time it is easier for you to study.”
Dayana Almirón Ramírez, a Peruvian living in Argentina who is in her first year of Medicine at the National University of La Plata (UNLP) – where half of her classmates are foreigners – mentions that international students receive “a lot of support.”
“For example, there is a university dining room that everyone has access to, where you pay 240 pesos (less than half a market dollar) for a plate of food,” he told BBC Mundo.
It also highlights the warmth of the teachers, who “help those who come from outside”, explaining local terms that may be difficult for them to understand.
Paradox
But, although foreign students say they feel welcome and comfortable studying in Argentina, the growing number of them studying in public universities -financed by taxpayers’ taxes- generates some controversy in this country, which is going through a serious economic crisis, with a annual inflation that exceeds 115%.
Criticism frequently arises from some sectors that question that the government, which is trying to lower its fiscal deficit, does not charge foreign students who do undergraduate courses in state-run institutions (postgraduates do pay).
However, the consensus in the educational environment is that multiculturalism is something positive.
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The high number of foreign students in public universities has generated controversy in Argentina.
“Foreigners who come to the country are welcome and improve our education because they make it possible to exchange with our university students and it also allows Argentines to study undergraduate and postgraduate courses abroad,” the Minister of Education of the Nation, Jaime Perczyk, tweeted. at the end of June, the last time the controversy on this topic resurfaced.
But, beyond this debate regarding whether Argentina should be training professionals who later, in most cases, do not stay to practice in the country, what is striking is the paradoxical situation in which the Argentine health system finds itself. .
Because, while the country has become a prolific and recognized medical educator, that profession is going through its worst crisis in many decades.
Getting an appointment to see a doctor today has become an odyssey in Argentina, with waits that often last for months. The causes are multiple, but they all have economic problems in common.
On the one hand, the drop in wages has caused a large number of professionals to stop attending public health services or through the popular social security and prepaid systems used by the majority of Argentines.
According to the Medical Confederation of the Argentine Republic, regarding 15% of the professionals who attended through providers decided to start doing private consultations, charging fees that are only accessible to the most affluent sectors.
At the same time, the newspaper La Nación reported in July on “the phenomenon of doctors who cross into neighboring countries to cover guards that double their income.”
According to the investigation of that medium, the growing number of professionals who cross a few days a month to work in places like Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay represents “another type of exodus of health professionals” that causes “concern”.
Another problem reported by the Argentine health authorities is that the number of residents in certain specialties that require many years of training and are considered less profitable is falling.
In particular in pediatrics, a deficit that caused problems during the recent outbreak of bronchiolitis that overwhelmed several hospitals.
At the end of 2022, the president of the Argentine Pediatric Society, Pablo Moreno, warned through a public letter that almost a third of the vacancies in the residency of that specialty were empty.
This problem is strongly linked to another phenomenon that has been seen in Argentina in recent years: the large number of graduated Argentine doctors seeking better opportunities abroad.
image copyrightMicaela Gutman
Caption,
Micaela Gutman (left) and Lis Houlton graduated as doctors from the UBA in 2022 and decided to do their residency in Germany.
Micaela Gutman is one of them. With the medical diploma that she obtained nine months ago under her arm, she has just moved to Germany together with two companions, to do her residency there.
“We are looking for alternatives outside of Argentina because the situation in the country is very complicated,” he told BBC Mundo.
“Salaries do not cover the high monthly inflation, so the quality of life ends up being very poor.”
“We wanted to guarantee a better quality of life without the labor exploitation that health workers experience. Therefore, despite the fact that we love Argentina, its people and its customs, we decided to leave our families and friends behind and take a leap of faith in a country that offers more care, security, economic stability and opportunities for personal growth,” explained the brand new 28-year-old doctor.
*Con reportería de Priscila Carvalho para BBC News Brasil
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