56% of Licensed Physicians Fail Exam

02/09/2017 - 11h05

Nearly 6 in every 10 licensed Doctors with degrees from institutions in the State of São Paulo started practicing medicine without the fundamental knowledge necessary for basic patient care.

For example: 80% of them don't know how to interpret the result of an X-ray and make mistakes in treating elderly patients. This is what was revealed by the results of the Cremesp 2016 exam, released on Wednesday (the 8th) by the São Paulo medical counsel.

The entity has been applying the "big exam" since 2005. The exam isn't mandatory for practicing medicine, although traditional institutions like USP, Unicamp, Unifesp and Santa Casa started requiring it last year for admission into physician residency programs.

The data reveal that the percentage of failure last year increased over 2015 (56,4% versus 48,1%) but still remains about average in historical terms of the evaluation.

"With the exception of 2015, the last ten years have shown a percentage of failure above 50%. It is necessary for medical schools to provide improvements in teaching methods and impose more rigor in their evaluation systems", says Bráulio Luna Filho, Director of Cremesp and Coordinator of the exam.

In order to pass the exam, Cremesp requires students to correctly answer 60% of 120 questions. Only 43,6% of the 2.766 participants achieved this score.

Seven of the new areas included in the exam had unsatisfactory results. The lowest averages were in Public Health/Epidemiology (49,1%), Pediatrics (53,3%) and Obstetrics (54,7%).

As in previous years, private medical schools continue to have poorer performance than public institutions (33,7% versus 62,2% passing rate, respectively).

Currently, there are 46 active and certified medical schools in the State. Of these, 30 were evaluated in the 2016 exam.

The others, which have been in operation for less than six years, haven't yet had classes graduate in time for the examination process.

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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