Frustrated university must again reject medical students despite doctor shortage

Aalborg University (AAU) would like to support this by expanding the number of study places from 179 to 250. Especially with the hope that it can help with the shortage of doctors in the North Jutland region.

If you were to make a heat map of the shortage of doctors in Denmark, the North Jutland region would be “as red as Málaga on one day in August”, says vice-chancellor at AAU, Anne Marie Kanstrup.

– After all, it is the purpose of a university to respond to society’s needs. So we have an obligation to increase the number of places, and we have built up capacity for that, she says.

This year, 486 applicants have chosen the medical education at AAU as their first priority. Several hundred applicants will therefore be met with a refusal when it is announced on Friday who will be offered a place on the country’s education programs.

It is not a new situation for AAU, which in 2022 had to reject 367 qualified first priority applications, while the figure was 320 last year.

When it comes to regions threatened by medical coverage, Region North Jutland is number two on the list – only surpassed by Region Zealand.

64 percent of all general practitioners in the North Jutland region have closed access to new patients as of 1 January this year. According to AAU, an analysis by the PLO shows that the national average is 54 percent.

According to Anne Marie Kanstrup, it is not unimportant that it is AAU from which the doctors are trained.

– We can see in our own figures and in the rest of the country that doctors must be trained in the region where they are needed. We have hatched more than 600 medical students, and out of them more than 80 percent have started their work as doctors in our region, she says.

The first offers of study places at the country’s higher education institutions will arrive shortly after midnight on Friday, while others will arrive during the day. The grade point average will also be published at midnight.

As early as Thursday evening, however, the veil will be lifted on how many have been admitted to higher education.

The number of applicants for higher education this year is 85,152. This is 1,079 more than in 2023, according to figures from the Ministry of Education and Research.

/ritzau/

2024-07-24 18:00:03
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