Solution for students who have to wait more than 50 weeks for medical internships

Erasmus MC has come up with a solution for medical students facing a long wait to start their medical internships. The maximum waiting time will be 50 weeks. Students who had to wait 60 or 70 weeks after last August’s draw can now start earlier.

At the beginning of September, medical students in various app groups tried to swap places in order to secure an earlier starting date. Some were willing to pay for this, and large sums were mentioned in the chats. The Medicine programme has now promised students facing a waiting period of 60 or 70 weeks that they will be reassigned. Their maximum waiting period will be 50 weeks, a spokesperson for Erasmus University confirms. Those who have already swapped places cannot claim an earlier starting date.

“We are reviewing the allocation of the available places for new students”, the spokesperson writes in response to questions from Erasmus Magazine. “We are currently discussing the precise details with the participation body.” Once this has been worked out, students will be informed of their new start date.

According to the spokesperson, this does not involve very many students. “Of the 400 applications, 26 students had a waiting time of 60 weeks and nine had to wait 70 weeks. But there were also 97 students with no waiting time at all. So the majority were able to start within the year.”

Longer waiting time

The waiting time is driving many students to despair. Having to wait longer to start your medical internships means studying for longer, remaining dependent on your student loan for longer and therefore building up greater student debt. “During your clinical placements, you only receive 300 euros a month, which isn’t even enough to cover your rent, even though you are working full-time”, a medical student previously told EM.

The student wished to remain anonymous, but does want to talk about her study delay of one year and seven months. An extremely costly delay, which is causing a great deal of stress. That is why she was prepared to pay for an earlier starting place: “I wanted to use all the savings I had accumulated so far, in the hope of being able to start earlier.” So far, she has had no luck swapping places. She is, however, allowed to start a few weeks earlier, although exactly how much earlier remains to be seen.

The master’s in Medicine takes three years. Six months of this consists of carrying out research and writing a thesis. The remainder is spent on medical internships. Starting places are allocated by lottery.

A spokesperson says that the Medicine programme knew in advance that there would be more participants than usual in the lottery at the end of August. They had 350 starting places available, and 380 students took part in the lottery, the spokesperson says. Additional places had already been created beforehand.

The fact that so many students tried to swap places nevertheless came as a surprise. The spokesperson says they had misjudged the strong preference most students had for the earliest possible start date. They had also underestimated the consequences this would have for the waiting time of students who were assigned a late start date in the lottery.

No evidence of payment

Waiting for a clinical placement and medical students swapping places among themselves are nothing new. The swapping is not prohibited either. “However, we consider it highly undesirable for money to be requested or offered in the process”, a spokesperson said earlier. “Financial means must not influence when a student can start their clinical rotations.”

The programme is looking into whether measures are needed to prevent payments. “The nature and extent of the reports surrounding this draw have prompted us to review the current procedure. In doing so, we are also examining the practices of other university medical centres”, the spokesperson wrote. It is not known, incidentally, whether students actually paid for an earlier placement. “Our focus is therefore primarily on a structural solution: organising the swapping procedure in such a way that start dates cannot be traded.”