Mohammad Reza Raiszadeh, head of Iran’s regime Medical Council, warned about the growing crisis of specialist shortages, stating that “in a few years,” even Iran’s major cities will face a shortage of pediatricians.
On Sunday, October 12, Raiszadeh said: “We have a shortage of pediatric specialists in Iran, and we must ask why our general practitioners are not interested in specializing in pediatrics.”
He added that many general practitioners in Iran are turning to the beauty industry but show little interest in pursuing pediatrics as a specialty.
As extreme beauty standards spread across social media, specialized cosmetic clinics have experienced a sharp increase in the number of surgeries performed.
Previously, Ali Jafarian, deputy health minister of Iran’s regime, announced that over 80% of emergency medicine program positions and one-third of anesthesiology positions remain vacant due to lack of applicants.
On September 18, the state-run Nournews website, citing official data from the Medical Council, reported that about 29% of registered general practitioners in Iran are not practicing medicine.
In July, Abbas-Ali Raees-Karami, president of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, reported declining interest among applicants for six medical specialties and subspecialties, warning that a shortage of applicants in core medical fields poses a serious challenge to Iran’s healthcare system.
A Crisis Under the Shadow of Budget Shortages
The head of the Medical Council continued: “There are patients in various cities, but no specialist doctors. In the past four years, no medical education plans were implemented. We are short of 600 trillion rials (approximately 545.5 million dollars) to expand medical training capacity.”
Raiszadeh warned: “No one is considering the requirements for general practitioners to enter specialization programs; everyone’s focus is only on the number of general practitioners.”
In November 2023, the state-run Eghtesad24 website warned that the shortage of pediatric specialists in Iran had become a major challenge for the healthcare system across many provinces.
According to the report, many residents of smaller cities are forced to travel to Tehran for their children’s medical treatment.
According to the Iranian regime’s Parliamentary Research Center in November 2023, the share of pediatric graduates among all medical specialists in Iran has fallen to below 1% since 2017.
The increasing wave of physician emigration has further exacerbated the shortage of pediatric specialists in Iran.
Shahin Akhoundzadeh, deputy minister for research and technology at the Ministry of Health, stated on September 15 that meritocracy is the key factor in retaining talent. He revealed that “most of the top 100 students in the medical entrance exam migrate abroad because proper conditions for employment are not available in the country.”
