This article was written by our guest writer Marina.
Congratulations, you are now approaching your final year of medical school or are about to graduate! Crazily enough, med school eventually comes to an end as well. It might feel like a never-ending period of your life and yet one day you wake up and you are suddenly done.
So with this article we want to help you if you are considering staying in Italy for your specialisation. We’ve also included an interview with a current doctor completing his residency training in Florence, after graduating from the English programme of La Sapienza University as a non-EU student.
How Do You Apply to Residency Training in Italy?
The first thing to consider regarding residency in Italy is the admission test, otherwise called Concorso SSM (Scuole di Specializzazione in Medicina), which takes place once a year (usually at the end of July) and is standardized and identical for all candidates all over Italy.
We know, we know… another test? Even after graduation?? You are probably sighing and rolling your eyes at the idea of taking another multiple choice test that might define your future (or more realistically what you’re going to be doing in the next few months). However, it is not an unachievable goal and the SSM test may seem a lot more doable compared to some of the things you went through in the past 6 years.
Let’s start with some details. First of all, the current SSM concorso has been established in 2014 and since then it has regulated residency admission for every single Specialization School in Italy (both private and public). The test closely resembles (or should we say it was freely copied from) the Spanish residency test, or MIR (Medico Interno Residente) test.
How Does the SSM Concorso Work?
The SSM includes 140 multiple choice questions, which each candidate will be able to answer on a computer screen provided by the test-administering facility. Similar to the IMAT, each correct answer is worth 1 point, unanswered questions are worth 0 points, and a wrong answer results in a loss of 0.25 points.
Your final score for the SSM is calculated by adding up the score you achieved in the test with a few extra points, called “punti curriculum”.
Here’s how punti curriculum work (updated to 2022):
You can get a total of 7 points (max) as punti curriculum. They are assigned to you based on your graduation score and your exam average. The points you can get from your graduation score are:
- 110 con lode = 2 points
- 110 = 1,5 points
- 108-109 = 1 point
- 105-107 = 0,5 points
Also, if you graduated with a research thesis you will get 0,5 points more but only if you upload your frontispiece (signed by your supervisor) while signing up for the SSM exam.
About the final exam average the punti curriculum work like this:
- from 29,5 up = 3 points
- from 29 to 29,4 = 2,5 points
- from 28,5 to 28,9 = 2 points
- from 28 to 28,4 = 1,5 points
- from 27,5 to 27,9 = 1 point
- from 27 to 27,4 = 0,5 points
So, let’s say for example, that you graduated with 110 con lode (good job, doc!) and your exam average was 29,2. That means that your final score in the Concorso SSM will be the score you achieved in the actual test + 2 points + 2,5 points (with half a point more if you uploaded your research thesis).
Hence, your final score is predominantly influenced by the score you get on the test. Yet, we all know how even 0.5 points more may make a huge difference when it comes to rankings and getting some extra points in recognition for all the hard work you may have done during med school is quite nice.
What's on the SSM Concorso?
The contents of the SSM test are quite broad, ranging from preclinical (even biochemistry topics) to strictly clinical questions, and most importantly clinically applied knowledge. Thus you may find questions about hormone receptors, genetic practical problems, but also ECGs to interpret and clinical cases to consider (e.g. picking the right procedure to perform on the patient or the right drug to administer).
AMBOSS a medical education company has created a “study guide” that outlines all of the topics that can possibly be included in the exam, which you can download as a PDF here.
In Conclusion
After this general overview of the SSM test, you need to remember that you are about to graduate med school or have just become a medical doctor, thus you have been preparing for this test for the past 6 years. And even though it all seems impossible at first, you have already gained all the skills you need to deal with the Concorso SSM.
So, do not panic unnecessarily or do not throw in the towel before giving it a chance. Take your time going through past SSM test questions and to review/study from zero the high yield topics, without losing yourself over the tiniest details.
Good luck and we hope to see you soon in the wards all over Italy!
2 thoughts on “Medical Specialty Training in Italy: A Quick Overview for Graduates”
How does the choice of specialization work? Do we choose our desired speciality via the score from the exam or is it randomly assigned?
Is this peocedure dependent on the CV like germany?
You make a ranking of your choices for SPECIALTY and CITY and then based on your score will be offered a place from your ranking (if high enough). There is no real “random assignment”. It’s not dependent on the CV, it’s one exam called the SSN CONCORSO.