Health workforce planning and training, with emphasis on primary care. SESPAS Report 2012

Abstract

The present article provides an overview of workforce planning for health professionals in Spain, with emphasis on physicians and primary care, We analyze trends, describe threats and make some suggestions. In Spain some structural imbalances remain endemic, such as the low number of nurses with respect to physicians, which may become a barrier to needed reforms. The new medical degree, with the rank of master, will not involve major changes to training. Nursing, which will require a university degree, leaves a gap that will be filled by nursing assistants. This domino effect ends in family medicine, which has no upgrading potential. Hence reasonable objectives for the system are to prioritize the post-specialization training of family physicians, enhance their research capacity and define a career that does not equate productivity with seniority. What is undergoing a crisis of identity and prestige is family medicine, not primary care. There is a risk that the specialty of family medicine will lose rank after the specialty of emergency medicine is approved. Today, about 40% of emergency physicians in the public network are specialists, most of them in family medicine. In 2010 a new fact emerged: an elite of foreign doctors obtained positions as resident medical interns in highly sought-after specialties through the national competitive examination. This phenomenon should be closely monitored and requires Spain to define the pattern of internationalization of health professionals in a clear and precise model. (C) 2011 SESPAS. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L. All rights reserved.