Figure 3

Incoming students and attrition by cohort, 1977–2001. An indicator that allows us to determine the wastage is the rate of final efficiency in the career of medicine at the national level. To this purpose, a series of graduating classes with the same cohort was constructed; this led to the identification of the highest final efficiency, which was achieved in the 1985 and the 1995 graduating classes, with a rate of 834.9 and 804.3, respectively. The second-highest rate was reached during the period 1995–1999.