Minister says foreign doctors should be a temporary fix and must take national exam to practice medicine

Criado em 15/05/13 11h11 e atualizado em 15/05/13 11h21
Por Yara Aquino Edição:s Fonte:Agencia Brasil

Brasilia – Minister of Education, Aloizio Mercadante, declared that a program under study by the government to bring foreign doctors who are eligible to practice medicine in their countries of origin to Brazil will allow them to work in the country temporarily, for a maximum period of three years. He added that any foreign doctors who work in Brazil will be overseen (“tutoria”) by Brazilian universities and “…work exclusively in the public health system (“SUS”) in regions where there is a shortage of doctors.”

Mercadante, speaking at a hearing before the Senate Commission on Education, Culture and Sports, went on to say that the Brazilian government was not just importing doctors. “They will have to pass our exam (“Exame Nacional de Revalidação de Diplomas Médicos”) in order to practice medicine – in the SUS or any other area,” the minister explained, adding that no exceptions would be made: “We will not accept doctors that are not registered [in their own countries], who have not concluded their studies. And we will demand they take the Revalidação exam.”

According to Mercadante, there is a shortage of doctors in Brazil in the areas of pediatrics, anesthesia and gynecology, as well as a shortfall in remote rural locations. “There are not that many doctors to begin with. And then they all want to work in urban centers with the result that locations distant from big cities don’t have doctors. At this moment, the Ministry of Education’s medical school expansion program is taking these factors into consideration,” he explained.

Last week, the subject of bringing foreign doctors into Brazil was aired by minister of Health, Alexandre Padilha when he revealed that the government was studying the possibility of bringing doctors from Portugal, Spain and Cuba to Brazil to work in remote regions of the country where there is a lack of doctors. The Federal Council of Medicine reacted negatively, calling the idea “reckless.”

Editors: Beto Coura / Licia Marques
Translator: Allen Bennett