HASIn order to compensate for the shortages of doctors in our country, some hospitals call on practitioners who have obtained their diploma outside the European Union (EU) and who have not yet validated the knowledge verification tests (EVC). Created in application of the decree of July 9, 2021, the knowledge verification and mastery of the French language tests (provided for in articles L. 4111-2 I and L. 4221-12 of the public health code) have two objectives: to welcome practitioners from all over the world, while respecting France’s welcoming tradition and its desire to enrich knowledge and practices, while controlling medical demographics; and regularize the status of practitioners qualified outside the EU and recruited within public health establishments, while ensuring that their level of knowledge and understanding of the French language allows them to deliver quality care.
For the 2023 session, more than twenty thousand candidates registered for the EVC, for 2,703 positions offered. It is estimated moreover that two thousand to three thousand practitioners qualified outside the EU are currently working in French hospitals without having yet validated the EVC.
We, members of the 2023 EVC jury in the specialty of general medicine, carried out an impartial and objective double correction of the copies. We were unanimously surprised by the low level of knowledge of a significant number of candidates. In general medicine, 537 positions were open. Among the 2,662 candidates who presented themselves, only 241 obtained an average of 12 over all the tests, a threshold indicating to the jury a minimum level of knowledge to authorize their exercise. Conversely, the academic level of candidates failed at the 2023 EVC cannot allow them to remain in their positions. Medical deserts do not justify selling off either the level of the country’s future practitioners, nor the quality and safety of care!
Double standard
The very fact of accepting that practitioners qualified outside the EU who have not validated the EVC can practice in hospitals de facto confirms a two-tier medicine. Some of them are hired as interns and are obliged to take on senior doctor responsibilities that we would not entrust to interns currently training in France. These practitioners qualified outside the EU are also employed in a precarious manner and underpaid in relation to the missions entrusted to them. A practitioner holding a diploma from the second cycle of French medical studies or obtained in the EU, but who has not yet completed his doctorate and who practices on the national territory would be considered guilty of an illegal practice of medicine. However, successive governments have ratified this situation by entrusting the health of our fellow citizens to practitioners, some of whom have a level of skills not validated by an objective examination.
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