Sir

Three years after a review committee evaluated biomedical research in Austria, another external expert committee has presented equally disastrous findings on the quality of Austrian medical training (Nature 377, 468; 1995 & 395, 832; 1998).

In 1995 a research evaluation committee organized by the European Molecular Biology Organization strongly urged certain improvements. No action was taken. Indeed, the opposite of the recommended changes has been achieved. Lifetime tenure is now being granted automatically to all assistant professors, who are required to teach; institutes are merged without evaluation; and none of the assessments of groups or institutes has led to any change in their levels of funding.

Perhaps our authorities consider that external advice (after objective evaluation) is unnecessary. The failure to act upon the previous committee's recommendations suggests that the latest report, a Dutch committee's assessment of university medical education in Austria, will be met with the same attitude of ‘intelligent neglect’.

As professors of pharmacology in Austria, with considerable experience of teaching in other countries, we feel that the problems facing medical training in Austria and the consequences for other European countries demand greater coverage.

Access to medical study is unlimited, examiners can be chosen freely by students from any of the three medical faculties, examinations can be repeated up to four times, and there are few compulsory lectures. Many teaching staff lack an MD qualification and do not know the basic requirements of clinical work. Many students qualify — on average after nine years — without having been trained to solve even the simplest clinical problem.

Responsible European Union committees must analyse this unsatisfactory situation because Austrian doctors will be able to work freely in any other country of the union.