[Numbers of doctors and medical training:the situation in a medical school in Algeria]

In 1962, at the Independence, there were in Algeria about 500 medical doctors to take care of a population of 10 million. The situation has slowly improved later on. Nowadays, there are 45,000 medical doctors in the country (26,700 in the public sector and 18,300 in the private sector) i.e. more than 1 medical doctor per 1,000 population. However, the improvement has been more apparent than effective. The geographic distribution of physicians evidences a profound shortage in the rural areas and small cities. An opinion survey conducted on the medical students at the medical school of Oran shows a deep gap between the contents of their training and the real needs of the population.