Italian doctors are the oldest in Europe:
in 2021, 55.2% were over 55 years old, compared to 44.5% in France, 44.1% in Germany, 32.7% in Spain .
This is one of the data that emerges from a note created by the National Institute of Statistics in relation to the various bills on access to medical degree courses.
The analysis confirms the Italian suffering in terms of availability of doctors: Italy ranks fourteenth among EU countries in terms of number of doctors per 100 thousand inhabitants (410.4).
However, this is a higher endowment than that of France (318.3) and Belgium, although lower than that recorded in Austria (540.9), Germany (453), Spain (448.7).
The shortage of doctors is less marked for specialists, an area in which Italy, with 328.3 doctors per 100 thousand inhabitants, is ahead of Austria (300.7), Spain (277.6) and France (180, 0).
More serious, however, is the lack of general practitioners, who in the last 10 years have fallen by around 20% (-5,187 units): in Italy there are 68.1 per 100 thousand inhabitants, compared to 72.8 in Germany, to 74.8 in Austria, 94.4 in Spain and 96.6 in France.
However, the data on Medicine graduates has improved, having almost doubled compared to 2010 even if there has been a significant decline in the last two years.
On the other hand, there are approximately 49.2 thousand students on specialization courses, with an increase of 73.7% compared to 2017/2018.
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