Practising in Slovenia: the oral professional exam built on emergency medicine

Medical and health education in Slovenia

Slovenia has two medical faculties, in Ljubljana and Maribor. Medicine is a six-year integrated degree, and dentistry is taught at Ljubljana. Pharmacy is taught at Ljubljana, and nursing, midwifery and physiotherapy are taught at the University of Ljubljana's Faculty of Health Sciences and at other higher-education institutions, including the University of Primorska and Maribor.

Teaching is in Slovenian, with a small number of English-language options for international students, especially in Ljubljana. A foreign graduate who wants to work in Slovenia has to function in Slovenian clinically, so the language is not optional.

Graduation leads to the traineeship, which is a supervised period in a hospital or health centre. After it, the graduate sits the strokovni izpit. Passing it lets the graduate apply for a licence from the Chamber. Slovenia is an EU member and uses the euro, so a Slovenian diploma benefits from automatic recognition across the EU for EU nationals.

Graduates who move on face the destination's rules: PLAB or an accepted alternative for the UK, the AMC process for Australia, USMLE for the US, Dataflow and Prometric for the Gulf. Check each regulator, because accepted schools and routes change.

An exam built around emergencies and the law

Slovenia's professional exam is unusual because of what it tests. Most countries that keep a licensing exam test broad clinical knowledge. Slovenia tests three narrow things: how you manage an emergency, whether you understand quality and patient safety, and whether you know the legal framework you work in.

The emergency part is the heaviest. It combines a written part, a practical station and an oral part. That means a candidate who has only read textbooks will be exposed at the practical station. Practise resuscitation, airway management, ECG interpretation and the management of acute chest pain, trauma and anaphylaxis with your hands, not only your eyes.

Doctors and dentists: the strokovni izpit

The Medical Chamber runs the exam for doctors and for doctors of dental medicine. The Ministry of Health handles appeals. The exam is oral before a commission, and the subjects are the three above. The fee has been reported as roughly 200 to 300 euros, but published pages conflict, so confirm the current amount.

1. Complete the traineeship. Work under a mentor in a hospital and a primary-care setting.
2. Apply to the Chamber. Submit the application, diploma and traineeship record.
3. Sit the subjects. Emergency medicine, quality and safety, and the legal framework.
4. Handle a resit if needed. A failed subject can be retaken after one month. Failing more than half of the subjects means repeating all of them.

What each of the three subjects asks of you

Emergency medicine. Expect cases, not recall. A candidate may be asked to lead a cardiac arrest scenario, interpret a rhythm strip, or explain how to manage a patient with severe sepsis. The written part tests the knowledge behind the actions, and the practical part checks the actions themselves.

Quality and safety. Questions cover incident reporting, hand hygiene, medication safety, informed consent and the idea of a just culture. Be ready to describe what you would do after a near miss on your ward.

Legal framework. This covers patient rights, confidentiality, the organisation of the health service, the professional duties of a doctor and the role of the Chamber. Read the main statutes and the Code of Medical Deontology, then practise explaining them in plain language.

After the exam

Passing the strokovni izpit opens the licence from the Chamber and the way to apply for specialty training. Specialty posts are announced publicly and filled by competition, so a pass in the professional exam is a precondition and not a guarantee of a place. A graduate who plans to work abroad should request a certificate of good standing from the Chamber before leaving, since foreign regulators ask for it.

Nurses, midwives, pharmacists and physiotherapists

These professions have a strokovni izpit in the national framework. The chambers involved are the Chamber of Nursing and Midwifery (Zbornica zdravstvene in babiške nege Slovenije), the Pharmaceutical Chamber (Lekarniška zbornica Slovenije) and the Chamber of Physiotherapists (Zbornica fizioterapevtov Slovenije). We have not verified whether each uses an oral or a written form, so look for the programme on the chamber's site before you plan.

Slovenian exams at a glance

Language and recognition routes

The exam is in Slovenian, and clinical work requires Slovenian. EU, EEA and Swiss graduates apply for recognition under Directive 2005/36/EC through the competent authority. The rules for non-EU graduates are not stated on the Chamber's exam page, so ask the Chamber and the Ministry of Health what documents and language level they require. The government's business portal (SPOT) lists the procedure for the doctor of dental medicine licence.

Preparing for the emergency stations

Spend more time on practical skills than on notes. Take a basic and an advanced life support course if you have not, and practise explaining your actions as you perform them. Examiners listen for structure: assess, call for help, treat the airway, then breathing, circulation and disability. Then turn to the legal framework, which is learnable and often decides borderline cases.

Last reviewed October 2026