Next Friday, April 14, the term for the election of MIR places begins. Without losing sight of the situation experienced last year, which resulted in nearly 170 vacancies for the specialty of Family and Community Medicine, the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (Semfyc) has prepared a campaign in which young doctors who have just passed the exam are encouraged to choose Family and Community Medicine to do their training period as residents. One of the key ideas for the implementation of this action is to highlight the peculiarity of this unique specialty, which approaches medicine with a salutogenic and people-centred perspective.
Through an intense campaign on social networks, emails, videos and interviews with resident members of the society, Semfyc will promote the choice of Family and Community Medicine among the almost 11,000 doctors who have passed the MIR 2023 exam and who are preparing to choose a specialty to do the residency.
For this, the most significant and differentiating characteristics of this specialty will be valued, those that make it unique, such as the fact that family doctors are people’s doctors and treat their patients with a unique holistic perspective. in medicine.
The campaign also refers to the skills that future family specialists must have, who deal with any pathology, from cardiovascular to infectious, including respiratory, psychiatry, oncology, persistent pain, dermatology, osteoarthritis, etc. And any environment in which they carry out their care activity, in consultation, in the emergency room, at home…
Longitudinality, a unique trait
Longitudinality is the characteristic that makes the specialty of Family and Community Medicine unique. It is the value of the specialty that makes family doctors establish a very special relationship with their patients. But in addition, it is a cost-effective tool that makes health systems sustainable and profitable, since it is associated with a mortality reduction rate of up to 30 percent.
In this sense, Remedios Martin Alvarez, president of Semfyc, highlights that longitudinality “facilitates preventive care and early recognition of health problems; avoid overdiagnosis, medicalization and adverse events derived from overexposure to unnecessary tests and treatments; it reduces referrals to second-level specialists, manages to reduce visits to emergency services, hospital admissions and mortality; and improves life expectancy and quality, particularly in the elderly”.
On the other hand, Martin Alvarez underlines that “Family and Community Medicine presents enormous and highly motivating challenges, since perhaps we are the only specialty that responds to all pathologies, detecting them from the beginning. We have the capacity to be present in all the other specialties or, if you prefer, that all the specialties are in the MFyC”.
Difficult to fill positions
This comprehensive and holistic vision explains, according to the president of Semfyc, contractually complex situations that have harmed the specialty: “Although there is a problem of a general shortage of physicians, some MFyC vacancies are difficult to fill, such as those offered in places remote from the big cities, less attractive for young professionals”. In fact, some communities have intervened and continue to do so to stimulate their coverage.
For Remedios Martín, “the problem is aggravated because there are a large number of professionals who choose to work in the private health sector and in emergency care, both in the public and private sectors.” The lack of professionals and the difficulties in attracting physicians to primary care in recent years have led to CCs. AA. to create specific programs to retain MIR residents. An example of this is the measure taken in 2021 in numerous centers of various CCs. AA.: Given the enormous demand for personnel due to COVID, they offered contracts to all the residents who finished the Specialized Health Training, as they remember from the entity.
Evolution of MIR vacancies and MFyC vacancies
In the analysis of the evolution of the number of total MIR positions and of the Family and Community Medicine (MFyC) specialty in recent years, from 2018 to 2023, the data for total MIR positions show a progressive increase in the period analyzed, going from from 6,749 in 2018 to 8,550 in 2023. This represents an increase of 26.7 percent in six years. The largest increase occurred between 2019 and 2020, with 12 percent more places, while the smallest occurred between 2021 and 2022, with only 2.6 percent more.
The MFyC MIR data also reflects sustained growth, going from 1,810 in 2018 to 2,455 in 2023. This represents an increase of 35.6 percent in six years. The greatest increase was observed between 2019 and 2020, with 16.2% more places, while the smallest was registered between 2021 and 2022, when they practically remained flat.
If the proportion of MIR positions in MFyC is compared to the total number of MIR positions, it can be seen that this specialty has gained relative weight in the training offer as a whole. In 2018 it represented 26.8 percent of the total, while in 2023 it reached 28.7 percent. This means that almost three out of ten MIR positions are MFyC. The year with the highest proportion was 2020, with 29.2 percent; and the year with the lowest proportion was 2018, with 26.8 percent.