“This confirms a trend we had already identified: the National Health Service continues to lose its ability to attract and retain doctors even at such an early stage as specialty selection, despite the high number of available positions,” stated the president of the trade union federation.
A total of 2,331 initial vacancies were available for various specialties in the units of the NHS, ready to welcome new doctors whose specialized training will begin on January 1, 2026.
As the deadline approached for the 2,375 candidates to choose a specialty, which began on November 18, Joana Bordalo e Sá noted that general and family medicine, as well as internal medicine, had the most unfilled positions.
In the case of general and family medicine, most vacancies were in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley, the region with the greatest shortage of family doctors, emphasized the FNAM president.
Internal medicine, deemed crucial for emergency services, also saw low demand, with only 50% of positions filled.
In addition to the doctors who did not choose a specialty, 20% of the candidates opted to “terminate their association with the NHS,” the union leader warned, noting that these healthcare professionals are “moving to service provision, the private sector, and also going abroad.”
“The NHS is not losing doctors by chance, but because the government of Luís Montenegro refuses to create conditions for them to stay and choose a specialty,” she lamented.
From the recent FNAM congress, she highlighted, “solutions emerged” for medical internships, like integrating medical interns into the career path.
“It’s essential that the medical internship be reintegrated into the career path,” emphasized Joana Bordalo e Sá, pointing out that currently, the five to seven years of specialized training “count for nothing” career-wise.
FNAM has already sent a letter to the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, and the Central Administration of the Health System (CAHS), demanding an urgent review of the system and regulations for medical internships.
Approximately 11,000 interns make up one-third of the NHS doctors.
After many years of being organized by the now-defunct regional health administrations, the CAHS has resumed the vacancy selection process for specialized training, which continues until today.
This year, the selection process for vacancies in specialized training for doctors was conducted through a new digital platform developed as part of the medical internship dematerialization project.
According to the CAHS, this solution marks an “important step” in modernizing and simplifying procedures, ensuring greater efficiency and transparency in the process.
