Contact EURACT

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(32) 16 33 74 64

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(32) 16 33 74 80

TURKEY

I mentioned two new changes in primary care organisation in Turkey in my last report. One of the changes was concerning with the financing system of primary care services and all services provided in primary care that were free of charge except medication before, would be paid by users as in secondary care hospitals. Because one third of people in Turkey was uninsured, this change created a new barrier to access into health care system as expected. Health care use of people from primary care began to decline just within the first year of its implementation.

Undergraduate Education

The development of family medicine in universities is faster than its development in general in the country. A trend towords medical education in community settings is getting more prominent in medical schools. Nowadays Ministry of Health and universities has been negotiating on a protocol of improving relationship between medical education and national health services and providing resources in the national health care system to be used by medical schools. With this protocol, training of medical students in general practice will be implemented. This is also a very important step in order for family medicine residents to be trained in general practice. Thus, the relations based on individual efforts and initiatives on regional level will have been recognised and developed on national level.

Vocational Training

The law for regulation of specialisation in medicine being waited for several years has at last been enacted. Within the draft law, the duration of family medicine residency training was three years, with two years of hospital rotations and one year of training in general practice. But the law newly enacted contains only a total time of 3 years for family medicine vocational training. As for other disciplines, a special commission will be appointed for other details. This commission is expected to come together and to prepare instructions about details of the vocational training in the following months. Some EURACT members including me will become members of this commission. Now we are working on a proposal to be introduced to the commission. This proposal is going to include a framework program for family medicine vocational training in accordance with the EU directives and the EURACT statements.

We hope that our relations with the Ministery of Health will improve with these developments and we will have opportunities for making attempts for the other basic issues of family practice and education.

CME

Participation to CME aktivities is not compulsory and there is no requirements and recertification. The responsible bodies for CME are universiry departments, teaching hospitals, medical association and national scientific specialty societies. Doctors participating in the CME activities have CME credits from Turkish Medical Association. Activities of CME are paid by pharmaceutical companies or by doctors' own pocket.