The idea of controlling or restricting the admission of new students to medical school faculties in the country's universities continues to occupy the minds of health officials. Advisor to the director of the Social Security Fund (CSS) and Head of Teaching and Research, Paulino Vigil, stated that “we must generate a control between what the country needs and the capacity to train these professionals,” referring to young people currently studying medicine and those who have professional goals to pursue these studies at state and private universities in the country. “There are too many medical schools,” complained the CSS official, while reflecting that these faculties would be necessary. “Universities are graduating or training many doctors, and we do not have the capacity to absorb them in hospitals,” Vigil pointed out on the TVN-2 Radar program. Vigil stated that when there was only the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Panama, there was no situation of complaints about the lack of places for medical internships. “We have to face reality,” he expressed. Meanwhile, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Panama, Oris Lam de Calvo, showed a similar thought to Vigil's, although she was in favor of government and academic authorities from different universities holding a dialogue to “adjust” the issue of training new doctors. The Association of Private Universities of Panama (AUPPA) proposes that the national debate focus not on restricting access to medical training, but on strengthening joint planning between the State and universities, so that higher education effectively responds to the needs of the health system. They recognize the concern of the Ministry of Health and other authorities about the limited state capacity to absorb all graduates in internship positions, an essential requirement to obtain medical proficiency. “We consider that this difficulty should not be interpreted as an oversupply of doctors, but as an expression of a structural problem in the planning and financing of the public health system,” highlights the AUPPA.
