Poor take-up for student incentives

TAKE-UP of a generous scheme to pay medical students who promise to do some work in a “medical desert” area has been poor, the latest figures show.

For the university year 2010-2011, in which the “contract of commitment to public service” came in, only 141 contracts were signed out of 400 budgetted for, and even these were shared out very unequally geographically.

While 93% of contracts budgeted for in Burgundy were taken up, 79% in Picardy and 67% in Limousin and the Centre, only 10% took them up in Brittany and none in Languedoc-Roussillon.

Health Minister Nora Berra, who is in Dijon today promoting the idea, thinks this is because some regional health authorities publicised it better than others.

The contract gives, from the second year of study, €1,200 a month until the end of studies if the student agrees to work in a “medical desert” (rural or suburban area with few doctors) area for an equivalent area.