Shortage of doctors in emergency rooms

Young specialists who tell, to those who are about to choose the post-graduate path in Medicine these days, the value and importance of working in emergency medicine and in the emergency room. It is the video of the ‘#Noisalviamovite’ campaign, presented today by the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci to promote the value of specialization schools in Emergency Medicine. Over 101,000 doctors work in the National Health Service facilities, including 4,312 doctors specialized in emergency-urgency. However, in 2022-2023, only 1 emergency-urgency specialty position was assigned out of 4 advertised.

“We need more specialized doctors – the experts reiterated – to guarantee an essential service for everyone’s health and correct waiting times. The Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the association Items, Italian Emergency Medicine Schools and with the participation of the Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli, has created the #Noisalviamovite communication campaign with the aim of increasing membership in the specialization in Emergency and Urgent Medicine, highlighting the crucial importance and the strong ethical and moral value of this discipline to inspire future doctors to undertake, in ever greater numbers, this professional path”.

The campaign, which is aimed at undergraduates and graduates in Medicine, will be broadcast in the months of September and November, periods during which the over 14 thousand students who participated in the selection tests will have to decide which specialization school to enroll in. “To create the campaign, undergraduates in Medicine, residents in Emergency Medicine and already trained doctors were interviewed. Their testimonies were collected in a teaser video and 10 video reels for social media: a unique and authentic perspective, through personal experiences and stories, insights into daily work, challenges and professional goals”, underlines the ministry.

At the presentation of the #Noisalviamovite campaign also Francesco Franceschi, President of Italian Emergency Medicine Schools (Items) which represents all the schools of specialization in Emergency Medicine. In these days the young graduates who will pass the national competition for specialization will have to make their choice and “I hope they do it with their heart”, says Franceschi. “We have many students who write their thesis in Emergency Medicine, but then choose other specialties. This means that they do not follow their passions but other factors, such as economic ones or commitment. But I say that if you have to do this job for your whole life – he specifies – it is better that you choose with your heart”.

The campaign “wants to promote the value of emergency medicine: we cannot live without the emergency room and the territorial emergency, it is vital. But in recent years there has been a disaffection towards this discipline that however gives you so much from a professional and human point of view”, concludes the president Items.