The “impossible exams” in dentistry are over. The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities has agreed with the deans of the Faculties of Dentistry Change the tests that foreign persons who want to standardize their titles in Spain have to be carried out, as confirmed by sources from the department directed by Diana Morant to this newspaper.
The new system will enter into force this year in the July call and means leaving behind the current homologation model that includes some exams that have not approved any applicant in years. The questions of the tests will be based from now on which the students of grade are carried out in the Spanish faculties. It also ensures that there will be at least one annual examination, something that is currently not guaranteed.
The Ministry has been negotiating with the Conference of Deans and Academic Directors of the Faculties of Dentistry of Spanish Universities (Crado) to change the system of homologation of foreign titles of dentistry. Sources of the department explained to this newspaper that they were aware that the current model was not “acceptable” as long as it was, de facto, an insurmountable barrier for most applicants.
The process is also very slow. First the applicants can spend several years waiting for a mere response from the Ministry to your application. Once received, it is usual to include the requirement to perform an exam to complement the training they bring from their countries of origin. Those are the “impossible exams” denouncing people who have carried out the process. Romina explained to this newspaper that the subjects of Orthodontics and Dentistry in special patients were presented in March 2024. Just the two most feared. “I studied the two subjects on my own. It was chaos. There was no agenda or bibliography or anything. It is very unfair, I didn’t give time to finish it. ” Like so many other people, Romina, with more than two decades of professional experience behind him in his country of origin, suspended and since he is in Spain he has been acting as a hyginiesta (auxiliaries).
The candidates to standardize the titles support their statements with data: only the last 2024, of 689 exams presented in a total of 11 subjects in seven universities there are 650 suspensions and 39 approved. Subjects such as orthodontics, pathological anatomy or anesthesia and resuscitation have zero suitable. Special patients, nine approved and 274 suspensions. Several Applicants of approval consulted by this newspaper agree that, without subtracting importance to the problem of the deadlines, the system was complicated in 2019, when the Deans conference was responsible for the exams and homogenized and centralized the test. In addition to making exams difficult, the calls stopped leaving regularly, they say.
Dentists are not a special case among people who want to standardize a foreign title, although perhaps they are the worst success rate. But the system is not very agile for all applicants, although in recent years it is improving. According to data communicated by the Ministry this week, the number of approval has doubled this 2024 as it passes from just over 20,000 the year before 40,200 last, according to Minister Diana Morant in the Science Commission of Congress last Wednesday. Although the minister did not explain how many requests expect in the Ministry, she said that “for the first time” more requests are resolved than they enter, which should begin to reduce the figures of people on hold. The objective for 2025 is to double the positive processes until reaching 80,000 approvals, according to Morant. Almost four years ago that former Minister Manuel Castells presented a draft of Royal Decree to reduce the maximum resolution time to six months, something that has not happened.
A unique exam based on the Spanish race
With the change of system, the Ministry intends to “improve the quality and academic results in the implementation of the training accessories tests that people with foreign university degrees must carry out and who intend the approval of said title to the Spanish Dentistry title (. ..), and also (…) strengthen agility, viability, weighting, transparency and academic rigor in the development of this type of training accessories, ”according to the sources of universities.
According to the Agreement between Ministry and Deans, a Joint Work Commission will be created that “will agree and monitor the call model, and define the evaluation criteria and assess the results of the test or tests.” This commission will be formed by four members of the Ministry, four of Crado, a rector or rector of the Conference of Rectors of Universities and a member of the National Agency for Quality and Accreditation Evaluation (ANECA), the government agency responsible for controlling the Quality of the university system.
The new system will ensure that at least one test will be held per year, starting from this next July. “If the conditions occur,” there are sources, there will be two annual calls from 2026. All faculties that impart the degree of complete dentistry will carry out the exams.
Regarding the tests itself, “they will fundamentally consist of an examination of the theoretical and practical contents, although the Commission could propose other options according to the academic nature of the training deficiencies [de los aspirantes a homologación]. In the case of setting an exam, this will be based on questions formulated on exams carried out in the last two courses of subject subjects in dentistry “in the Spanish faculties,” taking into account the agenda of these subjects. ”
The exam will be unique throughout Spain and the evidence will have “as a fundamental reference the evaluation criteria and the bibliography that are collected in official teaching guides of these disciplines or subjects,” the sources explain. The possible discrepancies between the guides that each faculty has will be resolved by the Commission.
It will be the deans who will propose the exam models from these guidelines and the Mixed Commission will be responsible for validating them. The sources of the Ministry explain that this whole process will be done “sufficiently so that people who have to overcome this test can prepare with guarantees.”
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