In Galicia, few institutions symbolize the convergence between history, academic excellence and public service as the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC). Founded in the seventeenth century, it is today the largest of the State in number of places offered and a teaching and researcher reference. Its strength is not the result of chance, but for decades of planning, institutional cooperation and a collective effort that has been able to combine tradition and modernity.

This model, consolidated with an interuniversity agreement and with the Xunta in 2015, was based on a simple and effective idea: maintaining a single faculty of Medicine in Galicia, with decentralized clinical teaching in hospitals of A Coruña and Vigo. Thus, the best of each health infrastructure was used, a common quality standard was guaranteed and dispersed resources in duplicate structures. The high quality of the hospitals of A Coruña – Puntero in Spain in several specialties – and Vigo, more recently, justify that cooperative model.

The USC, therefore, should not close to share. In fact: he has extended decentralization progressively to fourth and fifth course, has created teaching staff linked in hospitals outside Santiago and has reinforced his staff in parallel to the increase in places offered. All this with a clear goal: respond to the needs of doctors of the Galician public system until at least 2037.

In this context, it surprises – and worries – the decision of the University of Coruña (UDC) to start, on its own, a file to implement a new degree in medicine. It is an initiative that breaks consensus, lacks known technical and financial studies, and is raised in a moment of budgetary tension. Doctors and professors of prestige, such as José Ramón González Juanatey, warnly warn that medicine teaching “does not admit improvisations.”

The key is research

The warning is not rhetorical. Forming doctors requires much more than classrooms and teachers: it requires accredited infrastructures, fully integrated university hospitals, consolidated research teams and a professionalized governance. All this is offered today by the USC ecosystem, reinforced by the Health Research Institute (IDIS) and a top -level biomedical fabric. Pretending to duplicate this model in A Coruña – and, perhaps tomorrow, in Vigo – does not guarantee any improvement in the short and medium term: on the contrary, dilute resources, weakens the critical mass and puts the cohesion of the university and health system of Galicia at risk.

It is not about denying the welfare value of the hospitals of A Coruña or Vigo, or questioning the legitimate aspirations of the UDC or those who ask for more presence in health training. The problem is in a form and background: advance by unilateral roads, without consensus or planning, weakens the system instead of strengthening it. As USC remembered in an article on this matter, Galicia has already lived in other degrees what the coffee for all: small faculties, without continuity or prestige, unable to retain talent.

The Unit of the Faculty of Medicine is not a compostelan whim or a centralist gesture. It is the condition of possibility of a model that has demonstrated efficacy. At present, Galicia has a faculty of medicine that works, which cooperates with the hospital network and continues to grow in number of places and in practical decentralization. What he does not need is a war of faculties that weakens the formative and scientific quality.

The international prestige of figures such as González Juanatey, with more than 1,100 publications, 75,000 appointments in Google Schoolar and a leading group in cardiovascular research, is also that of the Faculty of Santiago. Delking that base would be to mortgage Galicia’s ability to compete on the global biomedical map. Excellence, in this case, is built consolidating, not fragmenting.

It is true that decentralizing has political attraction: approaches to other cities, distributes prominence and relieves the burden of Santiago. But intelligent decentralization does not require multiplying faculties, but to reinforce clinical teaching in accredited hospitals under the same academic umbrella and, above all, research. That is the route that guarantees homogeneous quality, shared prestige and sustainability.

A Coruña and Vigo must lead Galicia

In short, Galicia cannot afford improvisations in the training of his doctors. Maintaining a single Faculty of Medicine in Santiago, with decentralized practical teaching, but unified governance, is the best way to preserve excellence, cohesion and efficiency of the Galician university and health system. The opposite would be to go back: divide, weaken and disperse a model that works.

This approach has a scientific basis, not only academic, and at all it is at all with the reasonable and legitimate aspirations of A Coruña and Vigo to lead Galicia and to strengthen its two large metropolitan areas, a process that Galicia’s xunta should not hinder, but to favor.

Both A Coruña and Vigo have abundant arguments to demand resources and infrastructure proportional to their economic, social and demographic dimensions, but that should not be confused with adoption measures that hurt science in Galicia. @Mundiario