For the third year running, the number of young doctors who want to remain in Bulgaria after graduation has been going up, indicate the results of a survey conducted among 224 Bulgarian students who graduated the Sofia Medical University’s medical faculty in 2024.

74.3% of the respondents state they plan to work in Bulgaria. This is the highest percentage of young doctors planning on staying in the country in over 10 years.

86.2% say they want to work in hospitals, and only 7.7% - as general practitioners. What the young doctors are expecting includes: better pay (25%), better management at all levels of the healthcare system (15.6%) and more and modern equipment (12.4%). 25.7% of the medical students who graduated in 2024 say they plan to leave the country, with 80.7% saying they plan to go to a European country, with only 5.3% saying they want to work in the US.

The graduation ceremony for the young doctors will take place on 26 February, 2025. Out of the 577 doctors who graduated last year, 224 are Bulgarian and 353 foreign students.