Medicine requires collaboration across all disciplines, not separation.
En Buenos Aires, más de veinte decanos de facultades de medicina de todo el país se reunieron para enfrentar una pregunta que toda sociedad debe hacerse tarde o temprano: ¿cómo garantizamos que quienes cuidan de la vida humana estén verdaderamente preparados para hacerlo? Lo que emergió no fue solo un diagnóstico de fallas técnicas en los planes de estudio, sino el reconocimiento de que formar médicos es, en el fondo, un acto de responsabilidad colectiva. Las propuestas que surgieron —desde la recertificación obligatoria hasta la incorporación de humanidades en la currícula— apuntan a una medicina que no separe el saber científico del saber humano.
- Los programas de medicina en Argentina forman profesionales con desequilibrios profundos: demasiada teoría, poca práctica clínica real, y sin mecanismos para verificar si los egresados realmente saben lo que deben saber.
- La ausencia de un sistema de evaluación continua y de recertificación periódica significa que un médico puede ejercer décadas sin que nadie compruebe si su conocimiento sigue siendo vigente.
- Los decanos propusieron tejer teoría y práctica en cada asignatura, ampliar los intercambios entre instituciones, e incorporar ética, comunicación y ciencias sociales como ejes transversales de la formación.
- La visión más ambiciosa plantea romper el molde: el médico del futuro no será solo clínico, sino también investigador, gestor de salud pública, o profesional en campos emergentes como el neuroderecho.
- La maldistribución geográfica de médicos —concentrados en ciudades, ausentes en zonas rurales— quedó como una herida abierta que la educación sola no puede cerrar sin políticas públicas que la acompañen.
El 6 de agosto, más de veinte decanos de facultades de medicina de universidades públicas y privadas de Argentina se reunieron en la UBA para enfrentar un conjunto de problemas que llevaban años acumulándose. El diagnóstico fue extenso: desequilibrio entre formación teórica y práctica clínica, ausencia de evaluaciones sistemáticas, acceso limitado a pasantías en otras instituciones, escasa presencia de humanidades en los planes de estudio, y ninguna exigencia de actualización una vez concluida la formación.
Divididos en grupos de trabajo, los decanos encontraron un patrón común: el problema no era de voluntad sino de estructura. Las universidades privadas, con menos alumnos y hospitales propios, podían integrar práctica clínica a lo largo de toda la carrera. Las públicas, con matrículas masivas, no tenían esa posibilidad. Aun así, todos coincidieron en que teoría y práctica debían entrelazarse en cada materia, no correr por carriles separados. También acordaron avanzar hacia evaluaciones continuas que permitan detectar dificultades antes de la graduación, y facilitar los intercambios entre instituciones sin convertirlos en obligación.
Un punto de acuerdo significativo fue la necesidad de incorporar ética, comunicación y dimensiones sociales de la enfermedad a lo largo de toda la currícula, no como un curso aislado. Y la propuesta más ambiciosa fue la recertificación periódica obligatoria: no mediante exámenes traumáticos, sino a través de evidencia de educación continua, coordinada con el Consejo de Certificación de Profesionales Médicos de la Academia Nacional.
Luis Ignacio Brusco, nuevo decano de la Facultad de Medicina de la UBA, amplió el horizonte: el modelo que separa clínicos de investigadores está agotado. La pandemia demostró que la medicina exige colaboración entre disciplinas y profesionales capaces de moverse entre el laboratorio y la práctica. Además, desafió la idea de que Argentina tiene demasiados médicos —durante el COVID hubo escasez— y señaló que muchos egresados encontrarán su lugar en salud pública, docencia o campos emergentes como el neuroderecho.
Juan Antonio Mazzei, presidente de la Academia Nacional de Medicina, advirtió sobre otro problema que el encuentro no resolvió del todo: la concentración de médicos en grandes ciudades y la dificultad de atraerlos a zonas rurales, algo que requiere políticas de Estado, no solo reformas educativas. Los decanos identificaron los problemas. Si el sistema tendrá la capacidad real de transformarse es una pregunta que aún espera respuesta.
More than twenty medical school deans from across Argentina gathered in Buenos Aires on August 6th to confront a set of problems that had been accumulating in how the country trains its doctors. The meeting, held at the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine, brought together leaders from public and private institutions to hash out what was broken and what needed fixing. The list was long: medical students weren't getting the right balance between classroom learning and hands-on clinical work. There was no consistent way to evaluate whether graduates were actually competent. Young doctors had limited access to internships at other institutions. The curriculum barely touched on the human dimensions of medicine. And once physicians finished their training, there was no requirement that they keep learning or prove they still knew what they were doing.
The deans split into five working groups to dig into these issues. When they reconvened to compare notes, a pattern emerged. On the theory-versus-practice question, the consensus was clear but sobering: most medical programs were only partially achieving the balance they needed. The problem wasn't philosophical—everyone agreed it mattered—but structural. Different universities had different resources, different patient populations, different teaching hospitals. Some private schools with smaller classes and their own hospitals didn't require students to complete a mandatory rotating internship because they could offer supervised clinical experience throughout the entire degree. Public universities, with far larger enrollments, couldn't offer the same. Yet all the deans agreed the gap needed to close. Every subject in the curriculum should weave together theory and practice, they concluded, not treat them as separate tracks.
On evaluation, three of the four working groups pushed for something more systematic: testing students throughout their medical education, not just at the end. One dean from a private university noted that his institution already tracked where graduates ended up—how many got into accredited residency programs, for instance—as a measure of educational quality. But the broader group acknowledged this was complicated work and still rare. They wanted it to become standard practice, year after year, across all programs. The idea was to catch problems early, not discover them after a student had already graduated.
The deans also discussed expanding internship opportunities. Some universities were already letting students take electives at other institutions and earn credits for it. Others were just beginning to explore the idea. The consensus was that access to these exchanges should be easy and encouraged, though not mandatory. A student who wanted to study at another school shouldn't face barriers. Some institutions had already signed cooperation agreements with peer schools; others needed to build them.
A quieter but significant point of agreement involved adding humanities to the medical curriculum. Ethics, communication, the social dimensions of illness—these subjects barely existed in most programs, the deans noted. They wanted these topics woven through both the basic science years and the clinical years, not isolated in a single course that students could easily forget. Medicine, they seemed to be saying, required more than scientific knowledge.
The most ambitious proposal concerned what happens after graduation. Juan Antonio Mazzei, president of Argentina's National Academy of Medicine, had told reporters months earlier that physicians should be required to recertify periodically—to prove they were staying current with medical knowledge and practice. The deans embraced this idea but wanted it done thoughtfully, through evidence of continuing education rather than traumatic exams. They envisioned a unified certification system, coordinated with the Academy's Medical Professional Certification Council, that would track a doctor's learning throughout their career. The goal was to make recertification mandatory, not optional.
Luis Ignacio Brusco, the newly appointed dean of the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine, offered a broader vision. Medical education itself needed to change its fundamental approach. The old model—clinicians on one side, researchers on the other—was obsolete. The pandemic had shown that medicine required collaboration across all disciplines, that applied science demanded people who could move fluidly between the lab and the bedside. He also pushed back against a common complaint: that Argentina had too many doctors. During COVID, he pointed out, the country had faced a shortage. And he challenged the assumption that every medical graduate would become a clinician. Some would work in public health policy, others in medical education, still others in emerging fields like neurolaw or neuroeconomics. The profession was broader than it had been, and medical schools needed to prepare students for that reality.
Mazzei raised another structural problem that the deans' meeting hadn't fully addressed: most Argentine physicians clustered in major cities. Rural and remote areas struggled to attract doctors. In other countries, governments offered housing subsidies and competitive salaries to draw physicians to underserved regions. Argentina didn't. That was a policy failure, not an educational one, but it shaped what medical training needed to accomplish. Brusco noted that enrollment in medicine was actually rising—it was the only faculty at his university consistently growing—and he hoped that as specialization expanded, doctors would distribute more evenly across the country and across different career paths. The meeting had identified the problems. Whether the system could actually change remained to be seen.
Citações Notáveis
Studying medicine today requires changing perspective—it must be translational, with collaboration across all disciplines and specialties.— Luis Ignacio Brusco, Dean of the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine
During the COVID pandemic, Argentina clearly faced a shortage of physicians, not a surplus.— Luis Ignacio Brusco
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
What brought all these deans together in the first place? Was there a crisis?
Not a single crisis, but a slow accumulation of problems. Medical schools across the country were operating in isolation, each solving the same problems differently. They needed to talk, to see if there was common ground.
The theory-versus-practice split seems fundamental. Why is it so hard to balance?
Because it requires resources and coordination. A private school with a hundred students and its own hospital can do it. A public university with a thousand students and limited clinical placements can't, not easily. The deans knew this. That's why they didn't blame anyone—they just said it had to improve.
Tell me about the recertification idea. Why does it matter that doctors keep proving themselves?
Because medicine changes. A doctor trained twenty years ago learned things that are now outdated or wrong. If you don't require them to keep learning, you're essentially saying their training from decades back is still good enough. It isn't.
But Brusco seemed to be saying something bigger about what medicine even is.
Yes. He was saying the profession has expanded beyond what most people think. A medical degree doesn't mean you'll see patients. You might shape health policy, teach, do research, work in ethics. Schools were still training everyone as if they'd all become clinicians.
And the maldistribution problem—doctors all in the cities. Can education fix that?
Not alone. That's a policy problem. But if medical schools train people for diverse careers, and if the government makes it attractive to work in rural areas, then maybe the distribution shifts. Education is part of it, but not the whole answer.
What felt most urgent to the deans?
The evaluation piece. They knew they couldn't improve what they didn't measure. Right now, most schools have no systematic way to know if their graduates are actually competent. That felt like the most fixable problem in the room.