but medical education still has high credit requirements and few places to study. There are good reasons for this.
You hear it all the time in the media
– doctors are overworked, they have full patient lists, and primary care doctors is not enough.
When working through GP crisis issues, there is one question that comes up regularly among people:
“Why not just train more doctors? More places to study can also lower the credit requirements.”
It's probably not that simple.
– One of the reasons is that medicine, next to dentistry, is the most expensive education in Norway. One study place costs NOK 2,5 million over six years, says Steinar Hunskår. He is a professor of general medicine at the University of Bergen and has guided medical students through their studies throughout his life.
- Lots of
Unlike other study profiles, where 400 students can be accommodated in an auditorium with large lectures, medical studies require much more facilities and greater concentration.
– There are 25 different subjects in the medical field and there are an awful lot of them. In addition, expensive buildings with high requirements for laboratory facilities are needed.
In 2019, the Grimstad commission recommended to the authorities Norway creation of 440 new places at medical school.
Since then, only 125 have been created.
Hunskår, who also sat on that committee, says the government should put more money into more places to study.
– The government has announced that there will be more, but we do not know how many, when and where. It's very frustrating because we have to plan it.
The biggest obstacle
Vice Dean Jon Magnussen of NTNU says the university would like to train more doctors, but it's a matter of money.
- We are dependent on funding. It's an expensive education, so in that case the money has to come from the ministry, says Magnussen.
Vice Dean Magnus Løberg of the University of Oslo also says that money is the biggest obstacle to creating new places of study.
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summarizing
Norway is struggling with a shortage of doctors primary care, leading to long waiting times and overworked doctors. Although there is an urgent need for more physicians, the high cost of medical education and the limited number of training places pose significant obstacles to increasing the number of physicians. Medical education is the most expensive in Norway, with one training place costing NOK 2,5 million over six years. Unlike other academic programs, medical education requires specialized equipment and greater concentration. The government has promised to create more training places, but progress is slow because only 440 new places have been created since the Grimstad Commission recommended 2019 new training places in 125. Funding is the biggest obstacle to creating new training places, with universities reliant on government funding for expensive medical education. What to make of this?
