INTERVIEW
Dr. Laurentiu Iosif is a young doctor with whom we collaborated to find a job in Germany.
After he worked 5 years as Resident Doctor in a hospital from NRW which we proposed to him, the time has come for him to pass the specialist exam in Internal Medicine.
Because we believe that his story is of interest for the medical community, we decided to publish the interview with Mr. Iosif.
VLAD SARCA (EGV): How did you find out about the structure of the specialist exam?
LAURENŢIU IOSIF : On the following page- http://medi-learn.de/pruefungsprotokolle/facharztpruefung/ – I read about other colleague’s experiences. This page contains a lot of resources, it helped me so much. Beside this I looked for advice from acquainted doctors.
VLAD SARCA (EGV): How often does the exam takes place?
LAURENŢIU IOSIF: In NRW it takes place frequently, at least once a month.
VLAD SARCA (EGV): How can one establish the appointment for the exam?
LAURENŢIU IOSIF: A doctor can register up to one month prior reaching the minimum time to execute the residency, which in the case of Internal Medicine is 60 months. On the other hand, the exam file folder must be complete and procedures from Logbook (Logbuch) must be performed and this performance certified by the Heads of Department.
I want to say that people from the College of Doctors are very careful regarding submitted documents and it happened to ask for additions from me.
Also, once they get the documents and as they are certain that these are complete, they automatically plan the exam, in my case it was July 9, 2016 and I was announced a few weeks before.
What I recommend to my colleagues is to be well prepared for the exam once they submit their documents, because the exam date can be changed only if there are founded reasons.
VLAD SARCA (EGV): What about the exam?
LAURENŢIU IOSIF: It lasted one hour and we were two candidates. Each of us had 30 minutes available and I watched the examination of my classmate who also took the exam.
It’s an oral examination and there are three people in the committee including two teachers and an exponent from The College of Doctors.
The decision is taken by the three of them and each one votes for or against obtaining the specialization.At the beginning they asked me general questions, and then the questions became more concrete focusing on the details.
VLAD SARCA (EGV): Do you believe that there are other factors influencing the specialist exam?
LAURENŢIU IOSIF: I think that it is a plus if the commission or members of the committee know the head of department where the candidate worked during the residency or if they worked together because it is like a trust transfer which means a benefit to the candidate, but that does not mean that the candidate will take the exam without fulfilling the criteria.
VLAD SARCA (EGV): Thank you very much for your time and I wish you a lot of success further on!
