The countdown to next year’s MIR review has begun. In total, the Ministry of Health has called 9,007 places for doctors. A number that is a 51.2% more than ten years agobut insufficient to fill the deficit of professionals from which the national health system suffers.
In the 2015 call, the Ministry of Health requested 5,956 MIR places. Over the years, this number has increased to reach the 9,007 planned for 2025, as indicated in the decree published last Friday in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
The report on MIR places in 2024 prepared by Dr. Vicente Matas already warned of the lack of planning regarding the call for positions of internal resident doctors, as well as the current shortage of doctors affecting public health.
“We urgently need responsible medium and long-term planning to avoid problems like the ones we are currently experiencing. There is now a shortage of doctors in certain specialties and there are many without being able to access a MIR position,” the analysis warns.
A problem that the Ministry of Health itself has also recognized in the “Report on the Need for Specialist Doctors in Spain 2023-2035”. The department headed by Mónica García estimates that in Spain 5,874 specialists were missing in 202376% of them (4,502) in primary care.
The current deficit represents 3% of the total of active professionals, but according to the report, “a gradual reduction in this figure is expected, particularly from 2031, due to the greater relative increase in supply than in demand.”
Thus, the analysis indicates that in 2033 there will even be a “slight surplus of specialist doctors.” Something that Vicente Matas had also predicted in the aforementioned document. “In 11 or 12 years, we will have thousands of unemployed specialist doctors again work two months a year or be forced to emigrate.”
Specialized health training
Concerning the total number of places requested in Specialized Health Training (FSE), by 2025, there will be 11,943. This is 63% more than ten years ago, when 7,328 positions were eliminated.
Although medicine is the one that monopolizes the most places in absolute terms, the truth is that the one that has registered the greatest increase has been BreastfeedingBy 2025, the Ministry of Health announced 2,171 positions, compared to 959 in 2015. This represents an increase of 128.5%.
He follows Psychology. In the next PIR call, candidates will compete for 274 places, compared to 127 offered in 2015. That is to say, they have increased by 115.7%. It also highlights BiologyIn this case, the places have more than doubled over the last ten years, going from 30 in 2015 to 63 at the 2025 call.
For their part, the places of Physical they increased by 70%, to 51; and Chemistry 66.7%, reaching 25. Closes on ranking Hospital pharmacyOver the past 10 years, the Ministry of Health has increased the number of positions by 60%, bringing them to 352 by 2025.
News of the 2025 call
Next year’s call for projects for specialized health training brings new features. One of them is to eliminate the threshold and the minimum score to be able to participate in the selection and allocation of a place.
A measure that did not please doctors. From the Forum of the Medical Profession (the organization that represents these health professionals) they consider that this decision of the Ministry of Health is linked to the vacancies that remain each year in the specialty of Family Medicine and they consider it “fake“.
Mónica García, Minister of Health.
Delete the cut-off note “This will discredit the profession, the specialty and the training system.“, declared last July the secretary general of the National Confederation of Medical Unions (CESM), Víctor Pedrera.
Another novelty that could arrive in 2025 is the recovery of the in-person election of MIR, EIR and FIR. The Ministry of Health has already started the process in this direction in order to respond to a social demand. And the fact is that the system of election and reward exclusively by electronic means has been the subject of debate in successive calls since its implementation in 2020.
On the other hand, Health will also review the procedure for to be able to re-offer the places that the successful bidders have waived because in recent years there has been an increase in resignations. These positions still cannot be filled, “which is currently a problem that could be solved with a system that sets a deadline for resigning,” the ministry explained.
