Competition for medical school places in Poland has hit record levels this year, driven by a one-off demographic surge that regulators have done little to accommodate, according to data cited by Gazeta Wyborcza.
The bottleneck is sharpest in Białystok, where 23.3 candidates are competing for each seat, followed by Gdańsk with 16.9 and Lublin with 14.5.
The crunch stems from a policy reversal years in the making. A previous centrist PO-PSL government lowered the school starting age to six; the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party later scrapped that change, merging two age cohorts into one bloated graduating class. Nearly 345,000 students sat this year's matura exam, 89,000 more than a year earlier.
Universities, however, added just 253 free, full-time medical places nationwide, an increase of under 2%. The health ministry told Gazeta Wyborcza the figure reflects both institutions' teaching capacity and forecasts pointing to a saturated doctor market within five years.
Capacity constraints go beyond ministry policy, according to Jakub Kosikowski of the Supreme Medical Chamber, who cited a shortage of dissection facilities and clinical hospital placements as the binding limit on growth. Universities also cannot redirect capacity from paid, foreign-language programs, which help fund their operations, he said. Smaller non-medical institutions and new satellite branches in towns such as Nowy Targ, Nowy Sącz and Piła offer only a few dozen extra places each, providing limited relief.
A tough set of exams has sharpened the squeeze further. This year's matura-takers averaged just 41% on extended biology and chemistry, scores that count against them because universities rank applicants on raw percentages without adjusting for how difficult a given year's exam was. That leaves this year's cohort worse off than retaking candidates from earlier, easier sessions — though admissions thresholds are expected to ease once accepted students confirm places and free up waiting-list spots.
(jh)
Source: PAP