General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt has given directives to the Ministry of Defense to study the possibility of turning pharmacists into physicians after receiving certain graduate studies
The proposal aims at compensating the shortage in the number of doctors while facing the crisis of the coronavirus outbreak in the country. However, the Doctors Syndicate completely rejected the proposal, stressing that it would harm the health of Egyptian citizens.
The story started when Director of the Military Medical Academy Major General Ahmed Al-Taoudi sent an invitation to Chairman of Egyptian Medical Syndicate Dr. Hussein Khairy to attend a meeting at the Academy’s headquarters at two o’clock next Wednesday, to discuss the possibility of implementing Sisi’s proposal, indicating that the meeting will be held based on the directives of the President of the Republic regarding studying his proposal of turning pharmacists into physicians after obtaining the required graduate studies.
However, the Egyptian Medical Syndicate responded to the invitation with a letter addressed to the director of the Military Medical Academy, stressing its rejection of the proposal altogether, adding that “it harms Egyptian patients, because each class of the medical team has an important role to play, according to the theoretical and practical study they received in specialized medical schools for many years, and that no category can replace the other. “
The union Egyptian Medical Syndicate also said: “It is not permissible to say that any complementary study can be equivalent to a different scientific degree, as this matter will harm Egypt’s international medical reputation, given that there is no precedent in that regard in the modern history of the medical profession,” adding that “whoever wants to practice the medical profession must join the Faculty of Medicine from the first year; and after graduation and receiving necessary training, he/she will be granted a license to practice the medical profession,” the letter of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate to the Military Medical Academy read.
