Please note that the training cannot be completed in English.
Make sure you have the required attachments in electronic form at your disposal:
Carefully complete the application. You can supplement and edit your application until the application deadline. Late applications will not be accepted.
NB! It is particularly important that you do not leave your application in the draft stage, but save it and submit it for processing. Applications in draft status will not be processed.
Once your application has been processed and you have been granted the right to study, you will receive an email confirmation and additional information on embarking on your studies as well as other practical instructions. If you do not wish to receive the above email, please select the appropriate section on the form (‘En halua sähköpostitse tietoa päätöksestä’).
Regardless of the above, you will receive the decision on the right to study by mail to your home address within a few weeks. Your employer needs the decision letter on the right to study to apply for special state subsidies. Make sure you do not lose this decision letter because you can receive it only once. In future, you can obtain training certificates (in Finnish/Swedish/English).
If your application must be supplemented or cannot be approved, you will be contacted.
Further information and advice: meilahti-specialist@helsinki.fi, phone 02941 26200, Mondays at 12.00–15.00 and Thursdays at 12.00–14.00
Specific training in general medical practice is required to practise medicine within the health insurance system in EU countries other than Finland.
Working as a doctor or self-employed person in Finland does not require specific training in general medical practice.
Doctors register for the training at the university where they completed their Licentiate of Medicine degree. The duration of the training is two years. If the medical degree was completed outside Finland, the duration of the specific training is three years. To begin and complete the training, doctors must have the right to practise their profession in Finland. As of 1 January 2019, the right to complete specific training in general medical practice remains valid for six years from the granting of the right (Faculty Council, 16 October 2018, item E1). When necessary and for well-grounded reasons, doctors completing specific training can apply to the Faculty for an extension to their fixed-term right to study.
Doctors completing the training are personally responsible for having sufficient language skills needed to complete it. For doctors who have completed their basic degree in medicine outside Finland, the Faculty recommends at least satisfactory skills in Finnish or Swedish. Recommended language certificates include the National Certificate of Language Proficiency (level 3) provided by the Finnish National Board of Education or the Civil Service Language Proficiency Certificate (grade: satisfactory). Other appropriate means of demonstrating language skills include a course in Finnish (skills level 6–9) completed at the Helsinki Summer University, or Finnish general upper secondary education or a Finnish matriculation examination completed in Finnish or Swedish.
At the registration stage, doctors must familiarise themselves with instructions pertaining to completing specific training in general medical practice, which the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Medicine confirmed on 25 August 2015. The instructions include more detailed requirements on the training content, as well as the principles of approving completed service periods and other training components.
Before registering for the training, you must be aware of the following restrictions pertaining to work experience completed with a partial licence:
Provisions for specific training in general medical practice are available on the Instructions for Students website.
Further information about the programme can be obtained from the Instructions for Students website or meilahti-specialist@helsinki.fi.