Halland Hospital in Varberg climbed from eighth to a tie for first place with Västervik Hospital (last year’s sixth) on this year’s list of the country’s best AT locations. The list was prepared by the Swedish Young Doctors’ Association (Sylf), which asks doctors every year to rate their overall service.

At Västervik hospital, the AT doctors are most satisfied with the medicine and the surgeon’s placement. The hospital in Varberg receives a particularly high rating for psychiatric and emergency care placement, a new focus that a number of hospitals have introduced in recent years.

Västervik is described as a small AT town where the AT doctors can take a lot of responsibility, but also get good peer support. Halland Hospital in Varberg is a medium-sized hospital where the connection is described as strong, the AT management as involved and the service as instructive.

This year’s rocket is Södersjukhuset in Stockholm, which squeezes 15th place on the list. An improvement of 42 places compared to last year’s placement. The lowest marks are given to Capio St. Göran’s Hospital, Danderyd Hospital and Örebro University Hospital.

The waiting times for AT are getting longer and longer. They now have an average of 11.14 months between medical training and starting AT. Between 2020 and 2021, waiting times have increased in 16 of the 21 regions.

– It’s serious. We see in the responses of assistant doctors waiting for AT that they are in a very vulnerable position. AT is an onboarding service – a path to the professional role where you have structured supervision and training, Sylf’s president Madeleine Liljegren said in a press release.

People over the age of 30 and those who have been educated abroad have to wait the longest. Stockholm has the longest waiting times (17.9 months) and Västernorrland the shortest (6.5 months).

There is no improvement in sight, says Sylf. Because although the number of AT services has increased and will increase, it does not cover that need. This means that the long queue for AT will be filled with another 1,300 doctors in the period 2018 to 2023, Sylf writes in AT report.

At the same time, more and more medical graduates are considering changing professions. A whopping 21 percent — the highest percentage in the history of the AT report — say they are considering it. AT waiting times, high work pressure and problems with the work environment are mentioned as the main causes. It also appears that AT doctors work an average of one hour and 40 minutes per week.

– A good working environment for doctors is a precondition for patients to receive good care. Working as a doctor is a profession, not a leisure activity. It is very serious that our members, who take on a great deal of medical responsibility – around the clock, every day of the year – do not receive full compensation for their time worked. It is almost one day a month that our members give to the employer for free, Madeleine Liljegren says in the press release.

In the AT report, AT doctors describe their work environment and working conditions and rank all Swedish hospitals that employ AT doctors. A total of 2,220 people responded to the AT survey, the response rate was 64 percent. Respondents either completed or completed their AT by November 2020.

Read more:

AT manager in Varberg »Important to listen and be honest«

Södersjukhuset climbs the most in the ranking

Läkartidningen 36-37 / 2021

Lakartidningen.se 2021-09-06
(updated 2021-09-08)