Taking Away the Last Opportunity from Foreign Doctors
Doctors are leaving Slovakia en masse, and they do not plan to return. Even the Ministry acknowledges that the country lacks thousands of specialists. So why not at least partially replace them with foreign doctors? However, the way recent exams for foreign medical professionals were conducted suggests one thing only — better to have no doctors at all than to have “foreign” ones. And everyone’s personal experience with the Slovak healthcare system answers the question of whether this approach is right.
The Exam
On October 21 and 22, a professional exam for foreign general practitioners and dentists was held at the Faculty of Medicine of Comenius University. This is a mandatory procedure since 2016, conducted once a year at one of the three medical universities, as decided by the Ministry of Education. No preparatory courses were organized, no sample tests were provided, and the topics of the questions looked as follows:
The exam fee for general practitioners was €665, and 38 people took part. Among them were 15 doctors who had already passed the written part in the spring at the Slovak Medical University and were now taking the oral part — yet they had to pay the full fee again. For dentistry, 11 candidates registered, and the fee was €1,064.
And that’s only for a written multiple-choice test. Only those who passed the written part were admitted to the oral part. The university’s expenses were minimal.
According to preliminary calculations, Comenius University collected €46,949.
Many candidates came from Ukraine, where the average salary is around €200. For them, these fees are a real extortion. Many sacrificed their families’ last money, and some even took out loans to take this exam.
Pass Rate
Out of 38 doctors, only 5 passed the exam — 3 of whom had prepared in the Czech Republic and, according to my information, answered in Czech. None of the dentists passed.
The main question that haunted participants: "We’re dentists — why were there so many questions on internal medicine and surgery?"
There were other logical questions as well: Why did the legal section include laws not listed in the study materials on the website, such as the Law on Emergency Medical Services? The preparation materials listed laws candidates were supposed to focus on, but the test included others laws.
Why were there questions where the answer options were literally identical, but only one was considered correct?
What the University Provided
Registration for the exam, the venue, preparation and printing of tests, supervision by student department staff, test checking using software, and participation of the commission in the oral part. Participants were repeatedly told that all of this was imposed by the Ministry of Education and that the university itself did not want to do it.
How Doctors Perceived It
Foreign doctors were left disappointed and disheartened after this experience. Social media quickly filled with messages: “Don’t come to Slovakia.”
Those lucky enough to have come to Slovakia “just to try” could still return. But others no longer have that option — they have families in Slovakia or children in school and cannot go back. These doctors often now work as cosmetologists, massage therapists, caregivers in nursing homes, or run small businesses.
These are strong and determined individuals, because they chose a calling from God — to save our lives and the lives of our children. And I’m very glad that even in such a difficult situation, they didn’t give up and decided to prepare independently for the next exam.
Slovakia lacks 5,500 doctors and 4,000 nurses. Slovak doctors are leaving the country, but we are doing everything we can to block the arrival of foreign specialists, creating artificial barriers, and the exams themselves seem to serve mainly as a source of income for universities. Since 2016, only 65 doctors have passed these exams. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic has gained hundreds of new doctors, and Poland thousands.
But in Slovakia, we continue to play in our own sandbox and refuse to let in even those who came to help us.
Current articles by Alona Kurotova are also available at dennikn.sk