EDUCATION. Sahlgrenska Academy shoulders great responsibility for meeting the need of the medical system for trained doctors and nurses but sees no options for expanding its programs even more. The decision has raised questions among our dedicated teaching staff. For this reason, the faculty and program leadership would like to explain the circumstances that forced us to decline to enroll more students.
“Our society is going through one of its biggest crises in modern times, where the need for trained medical care professionals has come to a head. We are all committed to helping, both colleagues and students, which can be seen in the high number of applications to our programs. In this situation, we are sadly forced to conclude that the faculty must decline the request to enroll even more students, especially into our nursing and medical programs.
The reasons are many. The nursing and medical programs have been expanded significantly in recent years, and it is unfortunately impossible to expand these programs even more while maintaining quality.
The biggest obstacle to increasing the number of students is clinical-based training, where we had worked with primarily VGR but also with Region Halland even before the pandemic to turn over every stone to create the placements needed for our students.
Student completion rates have also been a problem. Though we have enrolled large margins of students, we have not been able to graduate the number of students needed to fulfill our educational assignment.
Among the Swedish institutions training students within the health care sector, there is wide-spread agreement about the difficulties in expanding these programs even more. For example, at the conference we hosted here in Gothenburg in December 2018, 23 Swedish institutions agreed that it was not possible to increase enrollment to the nursing programs while maintaining quality.
During the spring, the pandemic has also led to the cancellation of a large number of clinical training placements, and this means that, in addition to the regular placements in an already stressed medical care system, we need to prepare placements for additional students in the autumn.
In addition to the national undergraduate programs, Sahlgrenska Academy also provides supplemental education for doctors and nurses with degrees from outside of the EU/EEA. The Institute of Health and Care Sciences is also responsible for the National Board of Health and Welfare’s proficiency test for nurses with degrees from outside of the EU/EEA, so that they are able to acquire Swedish nursing licenses. Sahlgrenska Academy also participates in the National Board of Health and Welfare’s proficiency test for doctors with degrees from outside of the EU/EEA. It is also now being discussed to start reactivation courses in the autumn for licensed nurses who have been away from the profession for a period of time but who would like to return.
While Sahlgrenska Academy shoulders great responsibility for meeting the need of the medical system for doctors and nurses, we also have to consider the difficult situation for the clinical side of the programs.
Agneta Holmäng
Silvana Naredi
Agneta Ekman
Inger Jansson
Carina Sparud Lundin
