The National Commission for Medical, Pharmaceutical, and Dental Students plans to hold a national protest on December 7 at the Parliament Dome in Rabat, as well as a nationwide strike on December 7 and 8, according to an official statement.
This decision is made to express dissatisfaction with the Ministry’s decision to shorten the study period from seven to six without addressing concerns regarding the third cycle and issues accompanying the implementation of this decision.
These concerns encompass, “the ongoing ambiguity and mystery surrounding the sixth year, along with the various problems related to the lack of objective criteria and conditions necessary to implement this decision, as well as the delay in issuing the pedagogical guidelines for the third cycle.”
“We continue to sound the alarm about the disastrous situation encountered by medical, pharmaceutical, and dental students in public faculties, which negatively impacts the quality of medical education and the health of Moroccan citizens,” as highlighted in the press release.
The concerns in detail:
“When the training period was reduced from 7 to 6 years, there was no update on the legal status of sixth-year students, including salaries, tasks, and the objectives to be accomplished during their hospital training,” explained Mohammed El Mahdi Benhamida, the coordinator of the National Commission for Medical, Pharmaceutical, and Dental Students, in a statement to Hespress EN.
The pedagogical guidebook for sixth-year training stipulates that students must complete two mandatory trainings, namely, in gynecology and pediatrics.
The concern is the capacity of the gynecology and pediatrics departments in the hospitals to accommodate all medical students in the sixth year of their training, questioned Benhamida.
He confirmed that there were only financial measures accompanying the ministry’s decision to shorten the study period from 7 to 6 years, but “concrete measures on the ground” have not been implemented yet.
In addition, there is also ambiguity surrounding hospital training because detailed criteria and standards on a national level have not been clearly defined, mentioned the coordinator of the commission.
He also expressed concerns regarding the workload that sixth-year students are expected to accomplish during the academic year.
“Sixth-year students are required to do hospital internships, sit for clinical exams, which are the final exams in medicine, study some modules which are planned to be added, and write their thesis. The students do not know how to balance all of this,” outlined Benhamida.
The commission’s suggestions:
“We need decrees or legal texts that govern the training outside the University Hospital Centers (CHU), making sure that students are not sent to unsupervised hospitals,” highlighted the coordinator of the National Commission.
He said that the only decree that regulated hospital training has not been updated and it applies only to training within CHU.
When the ministry decided to increase the number of medical students, the latter became required to do internships not only in CHU but also in regional and provincial hospitals.
“When sixth-year students are sent to regional hospitals to complete required training, they should find a similar training environment as in CHU,” further highlighted Benhamida.
He doubted that regional hospitals give medical students access to a diverse range of clinical cases required for their training.
“If students are sent to regional hospitals, they will be exposed to only cases of the first and second degree, rather than the third-degree clinical cases that could be found in CHU,” explained Benhamida.
“Next year, there will be two cohorts graduating: one from the old system, which studied for seven years, and one from the new system, which received training in six years. Measures need to be taken to accompany the graduation of both cohorts in the same year,” highlighted the coordinator.
The concerns have been raised regarding the already fixed quota number of theses assigned to each professor for supervision, and the accompanied measures for specialty exams, explained Benhamida.
He further explained that, “every year, a certain number of seats for specialty are determined, but as two cohorts will be graduating this year, we demand an increase in the number of specialty seats.”
The coordinator also highlighted the issues surrounding the legal and financial situation of resident doctors.
He explained that when contractual doctors want to resign after the agreed-upon period in their contract, their resignation is often not accepted due to the persistent shortage of doctors. “They are allowed to leave only once a replacement is found to fill their position,” he added.
As to their training, he said, “there is no pedagogical guidebook that defines the objectives and skills that third-cycle students are required to accomplish during their training.”
In 2022, Morocco’s Higher Education Minister, Abdellatif Miraoui, said the duration of medical training should be reduced to 6 years, rather than 7, to guarantee medical coverage across the country, following the instructions of King Mohammed VI.
Miraoui explained that universal health coverage needs more doctors and nurses, resulting in the importance of the implementation of this new plan.
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