General Practitioners, Sardinia is the black sheep: it is last in Italy, 450 are missing

The alarm rings out punctually, reinforced by the Gimbe (Italian Group for Evidence-Based Medicine) report. Sardinia has lost – between 2019 and 2023 – 39 percent of general practitioners, something like 400-450 professionals who, for reasons of age, have left the profession. In short, we are the last in Italy.

This chasm has opened up especially in smaller towns and in disadvantaged areas. In fact, there has not been and there is not a turnover: the new generation of doctors are “fished” by the specialization school, which reserves a three-year course for them . The result is that many are placed in the clinics as specialists, but they do not always accept the most difficult to reach locations.

Then there is another aspect: in 2024 the participants in the national competition for the Specific Training Course in General Medicine were lower than the available places: -17 candidates (-28%) compared to the funded scholarships (Italian average -15%).

All the details in the article by Lorenzo Piras in L'Unione Sarda on newsstands and on the app.