Outstanding grades, six years of study and all the requirements for employment fulfilled, but no job offer from the Ministry of Health. Young doctors who participated in student protests and blockades are now wondering whether their involvement in the student movement cost them a place in a program intended for the best medical graduates, while the absence of public ranking lists and clear criteria has further deepened suspicions about how candidates were selected.
Milica Krčo graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad with an average grade of 9.98, passed the professional examination and met the requirements to work as a medical doctor. However, she was not offered a job through the employment program for the most successful graduates, nor did she receive an explanation from the Ministry of Health as to why she was not selected, even though the dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad confirmed that her name had been included on the list the faculty submitted to the ministry.
Her case is one of several that have raised questions about this year’s selection of young doctors, particularly because, unlike in previous years, no ranking lists have been published that would make it possible to verify how the selection process was conducted.
“After the Ministry of Health announced the competition, medical faculties submitted lists of their graduates. The ministry would then publish preliminary and final ranking lists, separately for each faculty. These lists included the names of students, their average grades and graduation dates, making it possible to check who had been selected and on what basis,” Krčo told Danas.
However, she says the process was not transparent this year. According to her, the competition was not officially published on the Ministry of Health’s website, the selection criteria were not made public, and neither a preliminary nor a final ranking list was published.
“These are not minor administrative oversights. Without a public competition, clear criteria and accessible ranking lists, it is impossible to verify whether all graduates had equal opportunities and whether the most successful candidates were actually selected. It is also particularly concerning that, according to the information available to me, the ministry has not responded to numerous inquiries from graduates who believe they have been treated unfairly, submitted by telephone, email and in person,” she says.
She learned unofficially from colleagues that calls to successful graduates had begun. She says she received neither a job offer nor official notification of her status, and no explanation as to why she had not been contacted. She was therefore forced to draw conclusions about her own employment prospects based on information circulating among colleagues, rather than a public ranking list and an official response from the relevant institution.
“When our faculty went into blockade as a form of protest in the fight for justice and accountability for the 16 victims of the canopy collapse in Novi Sad, I was at the beginning of my sixth year of studies. As someone training to protect human life and health, I considered it my moral and professional duty not to remain silent in the face of the tragedy that had struck my city. That is why I actively participated from the very beginning and never concealed my involvement. I attended countless protests, provided first aid during student marches, gave media interviews on several occasions, and co-authored an article about our student movement that was published in the medical journal The Lancet,” Krčo explains.
She says she leaves it to the public to judge, based on the facts, whether her civic engagement was the reason she was excluded from the program.
“I graduated on January 5, 2026, with an average grade of 9.98, passed the professional examination and was registered with the Medical Chamber. Since I know my graduating class well, I can say with confidence that only one colleague has a higher average grade than mine. In addition, I received confirmation from the dean of my faculty that my name was on the list of graduates that the faculty duly submitted to the Ministry of Health,” she says.
She explains that the fundamental problem with the entire situation is its complete lack of transparency, which raises questions such as: Was an official competition even announced? What were the selection criteria, and who was admitted to the program?
“I would like to tell the Ministry of Health that this kind of conduct cannot and will not be allowed to pass in silence. It is utterly hypocritical to speak publicly and during political campaigns about caring for young doctors and encouraging them to remain in the country, while in practice their employment program is being implemented without transparency and away from public scrutiny. Knowledge, hard work and six years of study must not be subject to anyone’s arbitrary decisions, but must be assessed according to clear rules that apply equally to everyone,” Krčo says.
Since she is not the only person affected by this situation, she expects the ministry to urgently publish all information of public importance: the competition under which the selection was conducted, the criteria applied and the final ranking list of successful candidates.
“As young doctors, together with the citizens who finance public healthcare, we have every right to receive an official explanation. As long as information is being withheld, we are being denied the right to question decisions that directly determine our professional futures,” she says.
She adds that this undermines all the effort they invested during six years of study, while Serbia’s healthcare system has long been suffering from the consequences of poor management, with hiring through personal connections and party membership cards becoming the norm. As a result, the path facing young doctors after graduation is often extremely difficult and humiliating.
“Every medical student in this country, not just the 100 best graduates, deserves an opportunity to find a job with dignity. Young doctors earned their places in this program solely through their hard work, knowledge and desire to help others. Nobody can take that achievement and integrity away from us, because in the end, knowledge, youth and students always win,” Krčo concluded.
However, medical student Milica Krčo’s case is not the only one. Petar Stojković, a medical doctor and doctoral student at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade, has also raised concerns about the issue.
“For years, the so-called ‘Employment Project for the 100 Best Medical Graduates’ has been nothing but a farce. It is an extremely non-transparent process in which the criteria, deadlines and procedures have not been clearly defined,” Stojković explains.
He adds that there is no public competition that applicants can enter. Instead, faculties submit lists of supposedly top graduates to the Ministry of Health.
“Several questions immediately arise: Who are these top graduates, which graduating classes do they belong to, and according to what criteria were they selected?” he says.
He explains that it is particularly problematic that, after everything that happened at the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade over the past year, from the unlawful dismissal of the dean to the alleged theft of the student parliament election, the faculty is still expected to submit such lists to the Ministry of Health without clearly established and publicly available criteria.
“In my case, I was not invited because I was not allowed to take the state examination, which is apparently considered one of the requirements for participating in this program. However, neither this requirement nor the way in which compliance with it is assessed has been clearly and transparently presented,” Stojković says.
He believes the project serves as institutional cover for non-transparent and possibly politically motivated hiring.
“Not only are there no publicly available, clearly defined criteria by which we could verify who deserves to be on the list, but there is also the question of whether this is employment in the true sense of the word. Many previous graduates received fixed-term contracts that were not renewed when they expired,” he says.
He adds that this does not mean those who were selected do not deserve their places. Quite the opposite: most of his colleagues certainly do. The problem, however, is that without transparent criteria and procedures, the public cannot verify whether all candidates had equal opportunities and whether decisions were made on merit.
“During my studies, I actively participated in student blockades and the student movement, and I remain involved to some extent,” he says.
He explains that he has no direct evidence that his participation in the student movement was the reason he was prevented from taking the state examination or was not invited to join the program. Nevertheless, he says there are serious reasons to suspect that the issues are connected.
“Before the state examination, people I know at the Ministry of Health told me that lists had arrived of candidates who would not be allowed to take the exam, and that, according to their information, there was no point in me even showing up. Despite that, I took the examination. At the venue, I was told that I had passed, but I received no written confirmation, which is another example of the lack of transparency I am talking about. Later, I was informed by telephone that I had actually failed. What is particularly concerning is that I was failed by a member of the examination commission who was the only person who refused to introduce herself,” Stojković says.
He says several of his friends had similar experiences. One of them, he adds, even took the examination three times and failed on every occasion under increasingly bizarre circumstances. He is now preparing to move to Slovenia and continue his life there.
“When we compare these experiences, a worrying pattern emerges: among those who had problems passing the state examination, as well as those who passed but were not invited to join the program, most of the colleagues I know actively participated in student blockades and protests,” he says.
He adds that he is neither resentful nor angry about what happened to him because, when he decided to become actively involved in the student movement, he was aware that it could have certain consequences and accepted that risk.
“When you make it harder for young doctors to access professional opportunities without clear criteria and transparent procedures, you risk driving some highly qualified professionals out of the country or discouraging them from working in the public healthcare system,” he explains.
He believes that we live in a system in which people are not given the opportunity to live with dignity, regardless of their political or other beliefs.
“I expect that, as a society, we will finally begin to recover,” Stojković concluded.
Danas sent questions to the Ministry of Health regarding the selection of the 100 best graduates, as well as the ranking list that has not been published. However, by the time this article was published, it had received no response.
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