Why Poland is short of doctors.

There are more places for future doctors at every stage. The admission limit for medicine rose from 8,170 places in 2019/20 to 10,730 in 2026/27,¹ the programme is run by 37 universities instead of 15 a decade ago,² and in the autumn 2025 specialist training session there were 14,598 places to fill.³ Even so, patients wait 4.2 months on average for a service in the public system.⁴

The Ministry of Health forecasts a nationwide surplus of doctors,⁵ and an analysis published by the medical self-government warned against training surplus doctors.⁶ This need not contradict the waiting lists, because a place at medical school is not yet a doctor with a patient — in a field with a shortage, in a public hospital, in a county. This overview describes six reasons for that gap and refers to the analyses in which each of them is set out in detail.

From decision to specialist: 12–13 years

A doctor admitted to medical school today will become a specialist only after more than a decade. The studies last six years, the postgraduate internship 13 months,⁷ and specialist training usually four to six years, depending on the field.⁸ With five- or six-year specialist training, 12–13 years pass from admission to medical school to the title of specialist.

The Ministry of Health does not say how many doctors complete specialist training each year, because many of them extend their training. As an approximation it gives the number of people who passed the State Specialisation Examination (PES): in 2016–2021 it was from 3,376 to 4,388 a year, including dentists.⁹ There are no newer figures in the public data of the Medical Examinations Centre (CEM), which publishes only the results of the written test, not of the whole examination.

Doctors who complete specialist training at this pace in 2026 began their studies in 2013–2014, when the admission limit was 5,352 and 5,510 places — roughly half the current number.¹ The cohorts of 2022–2025, admitted under limits of 9,500 to 10,500 places, will become specialists roughly in 2034–2038. The limit is, moreover, the upper bound on admissions set in a regulation, not the number of students admitted.

How a change in admissions translates into the number of doctors over the following decades is shown by the doctor supply simulator (in Polish). Where the low starting point came from is described in our analysis of cutting medical school places.

Not every place at medical school gives Poland a doctor

Of the Poles who start medicine, about 80% obtain the diploma within the nominal time: in 2023/24 there were 4,776 graduates of Polish nationality, and 5,954 first-semester students in 2018/19. Most dropouts happen in the first year. Six years after graduation, 5% of graduates have no Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) contributions in Poland; this is an upper bound on emigration, because it also includes career breaks.² We describe the details in the analysis Who drops out of medicine and who leaves.

Programmes taught in a foreign language are a separate pool: in 2026/27 they account for 1,838 of the 10,730 places in the limit.¹ They are attended mainly by foreigners, and of foreign graduates in medical and health sciences, fewer than 1% work in Poland a year after graduation (2021 diplomas).¹⁰ More in the analysis English Division.

Both losses become visible when admission limits are set against the number of doctors a few years later. In mid-2026, 20,457 doctors aged 26–30 held a licence to practise (PWZ) — roughly those admitted to medical school in 2015–2019, when the limits totalled about 37,100 places. So about 55% of the places turned into a licence to practise, but most of the difference consists of places in foreign-language programmes and for foreigners, not dropouts.¹¹

The final examination is not a sieve in this calculation: 95–97% of graduates of Polish universities pass the Medical Final Examination (LEK) at the first attempt.¹² The path of doctors with diplomas from outside the European Union looks different — we describe it in the analysis Doctors from outside the EU. Questions in the LEK format can be practised in the exam simulator (in Polish).

Specialist training places: more empty than filled

After the internship a doctor chooses a specialisation, and there are two kinds of places. Residency places are allocated in individual fields by the minister of health, who funds the resident doctor’s salary. Non-residency places are — in the wording of the act — the remaining vacant specialist training places in accredited units; in that case the facility pays for the doctor’s work.¹³¹⁴

Applications for both kinds of place are submitted in the same qualification procedure. When there are more candidates than places, the order is set by a ranking based on the result of the Medical Final Examination.¹³ The facility therefore does not draw up the list of candidates, but for a non-residency place it must have the money for the salary — and in 2022 a representative of hospitals said plainly that they did not have the money for it.¹⁴

There are more places than candidates. In the autumn 2025 session there were 14,598 places to fill, 7,995 valid applications were submitted, and 5,483 doctors confirmed acceptance of a place. 9,115 places, or 62%, remained empty.³ In the last four autumn sessions this share ranged from 56 to 74%, roughly two thirds in total.¹⁵

In autumn sessions 56 to 74% of specialist training places remain empty — mostly non-residency places

• filled
• empty residency places
• empty non-residency places

1. Autumn 202274% empty

   16,173 places, 4,180 filled. Empty: 1,147 residency places (27%) and 10,846 non-residency places (91%). Rynek Zdrowia

2. Autumn 202370% empty

   16,380 places, 4,934 filled. Empty: 2,323 residency places (37%) and 9,123 non-residency places (90%). Puls Medycyny

3. Autumn 202456% empty

   12,078 places, 5,310 filled. Empty: 2,303 residency places (35%) and 4,465 non-residency places (82%). Puls Medycyny

4. Autumn 202562% empty

   14,598 places, 5,483 filled. Empty: 2,557 residency places (38%) and 6,558 non-residency places (83%). CMKP

The empty places are above all non-residency places: in successive autumn sessions 82 to 91% of them were not filled, compared with 27 to 38% of residency places.¹⁵ The spring sessions look similar: in spring 2026, 52% of residency places and 89% of non-residency places remained empty.¹⁶ The chart covers only the autumn — together with the spring sessions, 7,200–8,200 doctors and dentists a year confirm acceptance of a specialist training place (2023–2025).¹⁷

Empty places do not mean that there are too few candidates in every field. In autumn 2022, 1,459 doctors did not qualify anywhere, although almost 12,000 places remained empty.¹⁸ Candidates aim at fields where places are few: in autumn 2025 there were 7.47 candidates per place in plastic surgery, 6.94 in dermatology and 5.88 in endocrinology.¹⁹ In these three fields there were 17, 50 and 51 places nationwide, of which 7, 35 and 25 were residency places.²⁰ There were fewer candidates than places in, among others, internal medicine, emergency medicine and geriatrics.¹⁹ Internal medicine alone had 3,084 places, of which 2,329 were non-residency places.²⁰ We show the full list of fields — places, competition and pay rates — by specialty.

An overall surplus of places does not mean either that there are enough of them everywhere. The Supreme Audit Office (NIK) found that in 2019–2022 the minister of health granted fewer residencies than the voivodes requested: in the spring sessions from 37.7% of the reported need in 2019 to 42.9% in 2022, in the autumn sessions from 71.4 to 58.7%. In anaesthesiology in ten voivodeships, and in paediatrics in eight, all the advertised residency places were allocated — in NIK’s view, more candidates could have been admitted had there been more places.²¹ How limits and modes of training affect access to the profession is described in the mechanism Restricted access to the profession.

How many doctors there are depends on the definition

The figure most often cited in the dispute over the shortage is 3.9 doctors per 1,000 population. These are OECD data for 2023 on practising doctors: the OECD average is the same, and the European Union average is 4.3.²²²³

Polish sources count doctors in several ways, and each gives a different number:

According to Statistics Poland (GUS), in 2024 166,515 doctors living in Poland held a licence to practise, and 141,193 worked directly with patients — 25,322 fewer. Per 1,000 population that is 4.4 and 3.8 doctors respectively.²⁴ The register of the Supreme Medical Chamber (NIL) and the GUS data differ in definition and date, which is why we do not combine them in one calculation. The supply simulator starts from the chamber’s register and shows the number of doctors working with patients separately.²⁵

The workforce is also older than the number alone suggests: of the doctors registered as practising, 24,595, or 15%, are aged 71 or over.²⁵ In the simulator this group declines only at the rate of deaths, because that is how the register behaves, and successive cohorts work by default until the age of 70.

• 140,297 practise the profession and are under 71
• 24,595 practise the profession and are 71 or over
• 9,480 hold a licence to practise but do not practise

1 dot ≈ 1,000 doctors

ExactNIL, Central Register of Physicians, as of 31.12.2025 · excluding dentists

Comparisons over time require care because of a change in method. The figure of 2.4 doctors per 1,000 population keeps coming back in the debate — a GUS indicator from 2010, from the time when doctors were counted from facility reports (the MZ-88 survey), which according to the ministry covered about 70% of healthcare providers and about 13% of medical practices. Today GUS counts doctors from administrative registers — among others those of the medical chamber, ZUS and the National Health Fund (NFZ) — so results from before and after the change should not be read as a single series.²⁶

Mixing definitions causes a similar problem. When in July 2024 the minister of health set 4.2 doctors per 1,000 population — that is, everyone with a licence to practise according to the chamber — against the EU average, Demagog, a Polish fact-checking organisation, rated the statement as manipulation: for Poland the OECD counts doctors working directly with patients, and by that measure Poland had 3.4 doctors per 1,000 population in 2021.²⁷

Doctors are lacking in specific places and fields

The national average hides a wide spread. In 2024 there were from 2.6 doctors working with patients per 1,000 population in Lubuskie voivodeship to 4.7 in Mazowieckie.²⁴ The OECD and European Commission report on Poland points to shortages in specific specialties and regions, especially in small counties around large cities and in rural areas, and to a very low share of family doctors: 6.7% of all doctors, against an EU average of 19.9%.²³ The ministry, too, while forecasting a nationwide surplus of doctors, notes that shortages may occur in some regions and fields.⁵

An example from the local press: in June 2024 the county hospital in Radomsko was looking for a head of its paediatric ward, closed during the COVID-19 epidemic. According to Gazeta Radomszczańska, the head of the ward could earn as much as PLN 50,000 (≈ €11,300) a month, more than the hospital director, and there were no candidates.²⁸ This is a single case, not a measurement, but it shows what a shortage in one field and one county looks like.

Contracts: the same doctors in several places

Most specialists are not salaried. According to an AOTMiT working document from February 2026, 73% of specialist doctors work under contracts.²⁹ Working-time and rest standards are not calculated per person across all contracts: since 2015 NIK has been calling for such a change in the law, and in a 2023 report it found that the recommendation had not been implemented.³⁰ The same doctor can therefore fill rotas in several facilities, and gaps in one place are patched with the hours of the same people. We describe this in the mechanisms Contract or employment and Multiple jobs.

Hospital directors explain high rates by the lack of candidates: whoever cannot fill an on-call shift has to outbid the neighbouring facility.³¹ Not everyone agrees. The director of the National Institute of Public Health PZH, formerly a vice-president of the NFZ, points out that rates were also pushed up by doctors moving to civil-law contracts after the change in working-time rules, negotiations by whole groups of doctors, contracts with pay calculated as a percentage of revenue from the NFZ, and the pandemic.³¹

How often very high payments occur depends on what is counted. According to AOTMiT, the median monthly pay under a contract is PLN 25,595 (≈ €5,810) gross, and 625 contracts, or 1.2%, were for more than PLN 100,000 (≈ €22,700) a month.²⁹ The agency, however, counts contracts in each facility separately, not people. Its president estimates that after adding up payments from several facilities 5–10% of doctors could exceed this threshold, which Rynek Zdrowia converted into 7,000–14,000 people; this is an estimate, not a measurement.³² We show the difference between a contract and a person in The distribution of doctors’ pay, and collect the highest disclosed amounts in record payments.

Too few or too many doctors?

The Ministry of Health forecasts that by 2034 the supply of doctors will exceed demand, with a growing surplus. It assumes that a doctor works 161 hours a month on average, and does not give the method or the data of the forecast.⁵ An analysis published by the Supreme Medical Chamber in June 2024 stated that “we are heading towards a significant surplus of doctors” (our translation); the chamber notes that this is not the official position of its council.⁶

On the other side are data on access to treatment: an average wait of 4.2 months for a service,⁴ shortages in specific fields and regions identified by the OECD and the European Commission,²³ and the findings of NIK from its audit of 2018–2022, according to which the minister of health prepared neither a model for estimating the need for medical staff nor a long-term strategy for its development.³³

This much can be established from public data: per head of population, Poland has as many practising doctors as the OECD countries on average, and fewer than the EU countries on average. They are unevenly distributed between regions and fields, and the structure of specialist training places does not match candidates’ choices. What cannot be calculated is how much work and how much public money falls to one person across all contracts together. The second of these figures would be shown by the open pseudonymised data we call for in the site’s proposal.

Notes 33laws, data and statements we relied on

1. Regulations of the Minister of Health on the admission limit for medicine and dentistry, annex 1, in the final version (with amendments from the same admission round): Dz.U. 2013 item 986 (in Polish) — 5,352 places in 2013/14; Dz.U. 2014 item 1125 — 5,510 in 2014/15; Dz.U. 2019 item 1344 and item 1713 — 8,170 in 2019/20; Dz.U. 2022 item 1655 and item 2023 — 9,481 in 2022/23; 10,289 in 2023/24 and 10,065 in 2024/25 (with amendments Dz.U. 2023 item 2027 and 2024 item 1419); Dz.U. 2025 item 1086 — 10,504 in 2025/26, of which 1,888 in a foreign language and 8,616 in Polish; Dz.U. 2026 item 1167 — 10,730 in 2026/27, of which 1,838 in a foreign language and 8,892 in Polish. Totals by university — our calculations, as in the table in the analysis English Division. ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Ministry of Health, BASiW, application “Studenci i absolwenci kierunków medycznych” (“Students and graduates of medical programmes”, in Polish) — POL-on and ZUS data: the number of universities running medicine (long-cycle master’s programme) in 2015 and 2025, graduates and first-semester students of Polish nationality, the outcomes of the 2016/17 graduate cohort in 2023; compilation and calculations as in the analysis Who drops out of medicine and who leaves. ↩ ↩²

3. CMKP, final results of recruitment for specialist training in the autumn 2025 session (in Polish) — 6,653 residency places and 7,945 non-residency places, 7,995 formally valid applications, 5,483 doctors and dentists who confirmed acceptance of a place (4,096 and 1,387); number and share of empty places — our calculations. ↩ ↩²

4. Rynek Zdrowia (PAP), report on the Watch Health Care Foundation Barometer for 2025 (in Polish), 12.01.2026 — average waiting time for a healthcare service 4.2 months (215 guaranteed services, data from September and October 2025); for a specialist consultation also 4.2 months. ↩ ↩²

5. Ministry of Health, “Kształcenie i liczba lekarzy — trendy i wyzwania” (“Training and number of doctors — trends and challenges”, in Polish), 7.11.2025 — forecast that the supply of doctors will exceed demand by 2034, with an average working time of 161 hours a month; caveat about possible shortages in some regions and fields. The page does not give the method or the data of the model. ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Supreme Medical Chamber, analysis of admission limits and the cost of training doctors (in Polish), 11.06.2024. The page notes that the analysis is not the official position of the Supreme Medical Council. ↩ ↩²

7. Polityka Zdrowotna, report on the draft amendment to the Act on the professions of doctor and dentist (in Polish), 8.06.2026 — a doctor’s postgraduate internship lasts 13 months; the Ministry of Health draft sent for consultation provides for shortening it to six months. ↩

8. Supreme Medical Chamber, “Wątpliwości części środowiska lekarskiego wobec nowych programów szkolenia specjalizacyjnego” (“Doubts of part of the medical community about the new specialist training programmes”, in Polish), February 2023 — when updating the programmes, CMKP shortened, among others, anaesthesiology from six to five years and pulmonology from five to four. ↩

9. Ministry of Health, reply to parliamentary question No. 31481 (in Polish), 9.04.2022 — table “Number of doctors who passed the PES”, spring and autumn sessions, doctors and dentists: 3,633 (2016), 3,546 (2017), 3,393 (2018), 3,527 (2019), 4,388 (2020), 3,376 (2021); annual totals — our calculation. In spring 2020 the PES was held without the oral part (reply to parliamentary question No. 21049, in Polish). The rule on publishing results: Act on the professions of doctor and dentist (in Polish), Article 16w(1). ↩

10. Ekonomiczne Losy Absolwentów (graduate tracking system), “Absolwenci obcokrajowcy na polskim rynku pracy” (“Foreign graduates on the Polish labour market”, in Polish), data from the 8th round of monitoring (2021 diplomas) — measurement of work in Poland a year after graduation based on ZUS registers. ↩

11. Supreme Medical Chamber, “Zestawienie liczbowe lekarzy i lekarzy dentystów według wieku, płci i tytułu zawodowego, stan na 30.06.2026” (“Numerical statement of doctors and dentists by age, sex and professional title, as of 30.06.2026”, in Polish) — 20,457 doctors aged 26–30 among members of the chamber; in the printout as of 31.12.2025, from which the supply simulator starts, the same group numbered 20,346 doctors practising the profession. Admission limits for 2015/16–2019/20 and the breakdown of the difference — in the analysis Who drops out of medicine and who leaves. ↩

12. Medical Examinations Centre, Medical Final Examination statistics (in Polish) — first-time candidates, examination in Polish, sessions from spring 2024: 97.2% of graduates of universities that have long run the programme passed, and 95.4% of graduates of new programmes; calculations as in the analysis of dropouts. ↩

13. Act of 5 December 1996 on the professions of doctor and dentist, Article 16c (in Polish; consolidated text Dz.U. 2026 item 37) — application via the SMK system for residency places (allocated in individual fields by the minister of health) or non-residency places (the remaining vacant specialist training places); competitive procedure when there are more candidates than places; result as a percentage of the maximum number of points, calculated primarily from the LEK result. ↩ ↩²

14. Prawo.pl, “Lekarzy przybywa, ale miejsc na specjalizacjach za mało” (“There are more doctors, but too few specialist training places”, in Polish), 3.12.2022 — in the non-residency mode the facility pays for the doctor’s work; one application covers up to 15 variants (field, voivodeship, mode, units); statement by a representative of hospitals about the lack of money for such places. ↩ ↩²

15. Results of the autumn sessions: 2022 — Rynek Zdrowia (in Polish), 29.11.2022; 2023 — Puls Medycyny (in Polish); 2024 — Puls Medycyny (in Polish); 2025 — CMKP (in Polish). Each time residency and non-residency places and confirmations in both modes; totals and shares — our calculations. ↩ ↩²

16. CMKP, final results of recruitment for specialist training in the spring 2026 session (in Polish), 14.04.2026 — 4,039 residency places and 8,221 non-residency places, 4,367 applications, 2,868 confirmations (1,927 and 941); shares — our calculations. ↩

17. Total of the spring and autumn sessions, our calculation: 2023 — 2,271 + 4,934 = 7,205 (CMKP, spring 2023, in Polish); 2024 — 2,171 + 5,310 = 7,481 (CMKP, spring 2024, in Polish); 2025 — 2,736 + 5,483 = 8,219 (Alert Medyczny citing CMKP, spring 2025, in Polish). The totals include dentists and second specialisations. ↩

18. Rynek Zdrowia, results of qualification for specialist training in the autumn 2022 session (in Polish), 29.11.2022 — 1,459 doctors did not qualify anywhere; 16,173 places, 4,180 confirmations. ↩

19. beautyrazem.pl, the CMKP director’s summary of the autumn 2025 recruitment (in Polish), 10.12.2025 — candidates per place, residency and non-residency combined, in fields with more than 10 places; ten fields with fewer candidates than places, among them internal medicine, emergency medicine and geriatrics. Secondary source. ↩ ↩²

20. CMKP, number of training places for the autumn 2025 session (in Polish), 28.08.2025 — residency and non-residency places by voivodeship and field; national totals — our calculations. ↩ ↩²

21. NIK, “Zasoby kadry medycznej w systemie ochrony zdrowia” (“Medical staff resources in the healthcare system”, in Polish), 2023, pp. 41 (footnote 77) and 44 — the voivodes’ requested need taken into account in the residencies granted, and the voivodeships in which all advertised places in anaesthesiology, paediatrics, psychiatry and family medicine were allocated. ↩

22. OECD, Health at a Glance 2025 — country note on Poland — 3.9 practising doctors per 1,000 population against an OECD average of 3.9 (OECD Health Statistics 2025). ↩

23. OECD and European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, State of Health in the EU: Poland, Country Health Profile 2025, p. 7 — 3.9 practising doctors per 1,000 population in 2023 against an EU average of 4.3 (unweighted average); shortages in selected specialties and regions, especially in small counties around large cities and in rural areas; family doctors make up 6.7% of doctors against 19.9% in the EU. ↩ ↩² ↩³

24. Statistics Poland, “Zasoby kadrowe w wybranych zawodach medycznych na podstawie źródeł administracyjnych w 2024 r.” (“Human resources in selected medical professions based on administrative sources in 2024”, in Polish), tables — 166,515 doctors with a licence to practise living in Poland, 141,193 working directly with patients, indicators per 10,000 population by voivodeship (Lubuskie 26.2, Mazowieckie 46.9). National indicators per 1,000 population — our calculations with a population of 37,489,087 from the same publication. ↩ ↩²

25. Supreme Medical Chamber, “Zestawienie liczbowe lekarzy i lekarzy dentystów według wieku, płci i tytułu zawodowego, stan na 31.12.2025” (“Numerical statement of doctors and dentists by age, sex and professional title, as of 31.12.2025”, in Polish) — 174,372 doctors (excluding dentists) who are members of the chamber, 164,892 practising the profession, of whom 24,595 aged 71 and over; this is the starting point of the doctor supply simulator (in Polish). ↩ ↩²

26. Rynek Zdrowia, “GUS policzył lekarzy i pielęgniarki nową metodą” (“Statistics Poland counted doctors and nurses with a new method”, in Polish), 20.09.2023 — the former MZ-88 staff survey (completeness according to the ministry about 70% of healthcare providers and about 13% of practices), the new method based on registers (among others of professional chambers, ZUS, NFZ, KRUS); the indicator of 2.4 doctors per 1,000 population from 2010. ↩

27. Demagog, fact-check of a statement on the number of doctors in Poland compared with the EU (in Polish), 12.07.2024 — rating “manipulation”: 4.2 per 1,000 population according to the medical chamber (doctors with a licence to practise) against 3.4 according to the OECD (Health at a Glance 2023, 2021 data, doctors working directly with patients). ↩

28. Gazeta Radomszczańska, article on the search for a head of paediatrics at the county hospital in Radomsko (in Polish), 26.06.2024 (partly paywalled). ↩

29. Rzeczpospolita, “Wypłaty lekarzy na kontraktach większe niż 100 tys. zł tylko w 1 proc. przypadków” (“Payments to contract doctors above PLN 100,000 in only 1% of cases”, in Polish), 18.06.2026 — AOTMiT working document of February 2026: 73% of specialist doctors on contracts, median monthly pay under a contract PLN 25,595 gross, 625 contracts (1.2%) above PLN 100,000 a month. ↩ ↩²

30. NIK, “Zasoby kadry medycznej w systemie ochrony zdrowia” (“Medical staff resources in the healthcare system”, in Polish), 2023, pp. 9 and 20 — recommendation that working-time standards and the right to rest be set per person, across all contracts in the public system; NIK made it in 2015 and 2016, and by 2023 it had not been implemented. ↩

31. Rzeczpospolita, interview with the director of NIZP PZH – PIB on doctors’ contracts (in Polish), 26.06.2026 — reasons for the rise in contract rates: avoiding working-time standards, group negotiations, pay as a percentage of revenue from the NFZ, pandemic allowances; a response to the hospital directors’ argument about the lack of candidates. ↩ ↩²

32. Rynek Zdrowia, “Kontrakty roczne na milion złotych dla lekarza. Sprawdziliśmy centralny rejestr” (“Annual contracts worth a million zloty for a doctor. We checked the central register”, in Polish), 31.08.2026 — AOTMiT had data on individual contracts, not on doctors’ earnings; the estimate by the president of AOTMiT (5–10% of doctors above PLN 100,000 a month after adding up payments from several facilities) converted, assuming 140,000 professionally active doctors, into 7,000–14,000 people. ↩

33. NIK, “Zasoby kadry medycznej w systemie ochrony zdrowia” (“Medical staff resources in the healthcare system”, in Polish), 2023, p. 10 — no analytical model for estimating the need for medical staff and no long-term strategy for developing medical staff (audit of 2018–2022). ↩