1. Accreditation procedure:
After completing the speciality training, if your supervisor gives you a passing score (which is the case around 99% of the time) you are automatically awarded the title of specialist (cardiologist, anesthesiologist, etc.). You don’t have to undergo any exams after that.
For doctors that finished their medical school in another country, in order to apply for residency, there is an exam they have to undergo to homologate their title.
Usually in Spain, physicians can get the medical license at the end of medical school without the need to do any licensing or exam. If your medical school was outside Spain, you would just need to homologate your tittle.
After graduation, in Spain it is difficult to work without a speciality, as there is even a speciality called “General Medicine”, or “Family Medicine” that nowadays also a Specialist accreditation is needed to work in (in the past was not needed)
There are too many doctors and very little number of jobs available at the moment in our country. So even if you get the medical license, you are not able to work as a Doctor; (just in jobs like jail physician, cosmetics advices, or private medicine which in Spain is not very big). So in order to work in Spain as a Doctor, you need to do the Specialization or Residency (both are the same thing in Spain).
3. Differences in application procedure depending on country of origin:
Every physician needs to take a national exam (MIR) in order to have the chance to choose the Residency. There is a difference between applications from EU member, and non-EU members.
Doctors without EU nationality can take the national exam (MIR), but they can just acceed to a limitated quote of Residency position of the 10%. For more information you can visit: http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2010/08/07/pdfs/BOE-A-2010-12707.pdf
4. Ratio between applicants and physicians who finally obtain a residency position:
5. Does everyone who passes the medical license examinations gain a residency position in a hospital?:
No, we don’t have a medical licensing exam, the only exam we have is to obtain an order number to choose the specialty, so there is not really a pass/fail exam. The ratio of 1:1.7 reflects that. However there are also some positions left uncovered in the less popular specialties.
In Spain, application for a Residency position is centralized: there is an annual exam called MIR exam (which is comprised of test questions about general medicine). Then applicants are ordered based on a score which is 90% the score in the exam, 10% the grades from med school (plus another 10% that takes into account the applicant’s publications, PhDs, etc.). That score orders the applicants in a list, so basically, you don’t actually get a score, but a position number. Based on that position number, applicants then can choose speciality and hospital, in that order. The exam’s result are only valid that year. To apply for a position the following year, applicants have to take the MIR exam again.
6. Specialties in which it is most difficult to obtain a position:
Depends on the year, but Surgeries in general or those with which you can get a job afterwards easily (Oftalmology, Plastic surgery,...)
7. Is there a waiting list for medical graduates who want to begin a residency?:
Yes but it has been decreasing the past last years. Now it is around 20 % of the applicants, depending on the speciality. However, there are always some positions left uncovered in the less popular specialties, because nobody chooses them.
8. Countries, except this one, in which the medical residency title is recognized:
It depends on the University and on the country, but in the EU, it is recognised
9. Requirements for international physicians to be able to work in this country after completing their specialization there:
Once a physician finishes the specialization (through MIR), he/she has the same opportunities being international or Spanish. The internationals will need a work-VISA but that´s it. There are too many Doctors in Spain, so it is hard to find a job after finishing the specialization. Doctor’s unemployment rates depend on the specialty but are around 5%.
You can work in a private hospital or clinic or in a public one. Health care system is Spain is mostly public. In order to get a position in the Public Health System (indefinite contract), you need to get “points” working in the public system first, and then, you have to make an exam (called: “oposición”).
