OSLO, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- A new report showed on Wednesday that Norway needs to educate 70 percent more students majoring in medicine by 2027, public broadcaster NRK reported Wednesday.
The report, published by a committee set up by Norwegian Ministry of Education, has been sent to the parliament. It recommends increasing the total admission quota in medicine study in Norway from 636 to 1076, an increase by nearly 70 percent.
"The main conclusion is that we should educate more of our doctors," said Hilde Grimstad, head of the committee and a professor of general medicine.
"Although Norwegian medical students receive good enough medical education abroad, two thirds of them study in Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. These are countries that place a different emphasis on primary health care, patient and user participation and the way one communicates with patients," Grimstad added.
"Norway should be able to afford this, for the Norwegian health test and for the patients. We excel at educating such a small part of our physicians themselves," Grimstad said.
The committee emphasized that they would not like to prevent Norwegians from taking medical education abroad, but recommend it be done at selected institutions that give Norwegian doctors a good background to practice in Norway.
Grimstad said that institutions in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromso -- which currently offer medical education, have all expressed their willingness to increase the number of places in the medical study.
However, Iselin Nybo, Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education, expressed her doubt.
"Judging from this, creating 440 new places will cost around 1.2 billion kroner ( around 132 million U.S. dollars). I think it is not realistic to achieve by 2027," Nybo told NRK.
