The hardest in the profession of dental surgeon, “It’s about reconciling the desire to treat and keep a personal life”says Dr. Oana Charmetant, 35, a practitioner in the Sarthe department, a medical desert. “Patients are suffering. They call several times a day for urgent treatment while my schedule is full for the next six months. I could work every day and every night until 3 am. » Long days, exasperated and suffering patients are also the daily life of the young doctor Gautier Lambour, dental surgeon in Essonne. With the exception of the heart of a few metropolises, the lack of dental practitioners affects the entire French territory. This is how Lilas (the first name has been changed), 25, in her fifth and final year of studies in odontology, is already overwhelmed with offers of collaboration, several months before obtaining her diploma.
The density of dental surgeons in France is well below the European average, according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In 2015, a third of new dental surgeons settling in France had obtained their diploma abroad, according to the direction of research, studies, evaluation and statistics (Drees). In 2022, this is the case for more than half (1,313) of new practitioners who came to practice in France, according to the order of dental surgeons. Among them, 687 are French people who left France to train abroad.
Since she had not been selected by French universities to follow a course in odontology, Dr. Charmetant studied at Carol-Davila University in Bucharest. Doctor Lambour is a graduate of the European University of Madrid, and Lilas will soon be graduated from the Cespu University of Porto (Portugal). In 2022, Spain trained 502 practitioners who came to settle in France, Portugal 399 and Romania 283. To treat themselves, the French population relies a little more on the training strength of its European neighbors each year.
End of the numerus clausus
How did France arrive at such a level of dependence? By setting up a numerus clausus which fixes each year the number of students authorized to study odontology. Established in 1971, this system of limitation had the effect of reducing training offers by half for nearly twenty years. “The successive governments of the 1970s and 1980s thought that, to reduce health costs, it was necessary to reduce the supply of care and therefore the number of practitioners likely to provide it”, exposes Doctor Philippe Pommarède, President of the National Council of the Order of Dental Surgeons. “It is a political will, corroborates Dr. Marie Biserte, vice-president of the Federation of Liberal Dental Unions, supported by the profession, which viewed favorably the fact of limiting competition between caregivers. »
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