Minister Of Health Criticizes Specialist Doctor Education: Expensive, Slow, And Unprofessional

JAKARTA Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin criticized the education system of specialist doctors in Indonesia. He said the current system is inefficient, too expensive, and is far from the practices that apply in many other countries.

In a joint working meeting with Commission IX of the DPR at the parliament complex, Senayan, Jakarta, Tuesday, April 29, 2025, Budi explained that the Indonesian specialist doctor education system is still academic, not professional education.

As a result, the specialist medical personnel printing process is slow and less adaptive to the needs of health services.

"If abroad, specialist education is professional education. In Indonesia, it is still academic. This makes the process slower," Budi said in front of the council members.

He gave an example of England, which has a population of only one fifth from Indonesia, but is able to pass around 6,000 specialists per year. On the other hand, Indonesia only scores around 2,700 specialist doctors every year.

"Our population is five times, but the production of our specialist doctors is only one-third of England," Budi stressed.

In addition to the amount, financial burden in pursuing specialist education is also in the spotlight. Prospective specialist doctors in Indonesia, according to Budi, must face major obstacles: they must stop working, pay their base money of up to hundreds of millions of rupiah, and study fees of tens of millions of rupiah per semester, and are not allowed to work during their education period.

"Once passed, I was only allowed to apply for work again. This is the only system in the world like that," he said.

Budi encouraged the education system of Indonesian specialist doctors to be reformed, follow other countries' models that are more professional and integrated with hospital services. He suggested that prospective specialists could continue working while studying, receiving salaries, and immediately being ready to work after graduation.

"If they can work while studying, they don't lose their income, the hospital system is also helped, and once they graduate they can be productive immediately," he concluded.

Budi Gunadi Sadikin's criticism strengthens the discourse on the importance of reforming the medical education system in Indonesia, especially in responding to the need for specialists who are still far from ideal.