Last week more than 100 of us gathered at Hotel Ørnen for the department day. I really enjoyed the day and meeting so many of you again. My impression was that everyone had a good time and appreciated this day, so maybe the department day will become an annual event. I would like to thank everyone who presented during the day, those that organized the sessions, everyone involved in the planning and organization of the day, and all others for finding the time to attend the day.
As I have pointed out the last months, the economical situation for the department is very tight, so I was very curious to see if there could be any possible positive effects to be deduced from the revised state budget posted yesterday. The two main topics of interest were the development in “vestlandslegen” and the pension cut, one of the main financial challenges for this year and the years to come. In the revised state budget, the pension cut was reduced with 61 million on a national basis, which I see as a slight potential improvement. But at the same time the government reduce the funding to universities and university colleges with 59,5 million due to lower expected traveling costs. In sum it remains to see if this will slightly improve the department economy or not. Regarding vestlandslegen, the potential increase in the number of medical students that can be enrolled, there wasn’t any increase in this number for the coming year. One interesting statement was however that “The government will not allow for the establishment of new medical educations. The medical education is an integrated six-year education, and it is therefore not open to three-year study models in medicine”. This statement was the basis for an article in Khrono yesterday which can be found here: Stavanger får ikke medisinutdanning (khrono.no).
As far as I can judge, the economic picture for the department looks pretty much the same as before the revised state budget, which means that the department economy will remain very tight.
The Norwegian constitution day, 17th of May, is coming up next week, so I wish everyone great weekend and happy constitution day!
