Mario Lugones: 'Our goal is to protect meritocracy'

After the release of a video of an Ecuadorian who recorded images of the Medical Residency Unified Exam, the Minister of Health of the Nation, Mario Lugones, emphasized that merit is valued today.

"Our goal is to protect meritocracy and every professional who prepared honestly to become part of the health system. That is our obligation," Lugones stated in a post on X.

Amid the implementation of deep reforms to restore the culture of effort in Argentina,  Javier Milei's Government faces a new example of how the previous system had given way to opportunism and cheating.

The aforementioned medical residency exam—a key stage for accessing professional training of excellence in the public system—became embroiled in a scandal involving academic fraud practices carried out with cutting-edge technology by applicants, mostly foreigners.

Additionally, together with the Undersecretary of University Policies, Alejandro Álvarez, Lugones announced a series of measures aimed at ensuring transparency and fairness in admission to medical residencies.

"We are not going to allow health to fall into the hands of professionals who are not up to the task. For this reason, together with Alejandro Álvarez, Undersecretary of University Policies, we established clear criteria to evaluate academic consistency and ensure that admission is fair, transparent, and based on merit," the minister stated.

Mario Lugones and meritocracy

In his post on X, Lugones highlighted the work of the Ministry of Health in the case of the suspicious results of the exams for medical residencies.

"This is the most symbolic case of what happened in the residency exams. The person in the video scored 92 points by filming the exam with special glasses, deceiving not only a system, but also trying to steal the place of an honest doctor who studied and prepared. For this reason, from the Ministry of Health, we stopped the process and validated each suspicious case one by one," he stated.

"Many of the anomalous scores come from foreign institutions whose academic systems do not require the same standards or apply comparable quality controls. For years, the system accepted degrees without verifying whether they truly reflected merit and preparation. This Government changed that logic: today, merit is defended, as well as those who trained with effort in Argentine universities," he added.

"The operational responsibility for the exam—including security to prevent cheating—was held by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires. The venue was Parque Roca. Everything was under the responsibility of GCBA. Our goal is to protect meritocracy and every professional who prepared honestly to become part of the health system. That is our obligation," he concluded.