Returning Taiwanese students with diplomas issued by foreign medical schools must sit the Ministry of Education's qualification test and complete an internship at an appointed local hospital before they can qualify for the state licensing examination, the health minister said Monday. Yeh Ching-chun, minister of the Cabinet-level Department of Health (DOH), said the DOH will stand firm on this requirement so as to better protect the people's health. He was referring to a demand by some Taiwanese graduates from Polish medical schools that they be allowed to take part in the national licensing examination without going through the first two stages. In accordance with the present Physician Act, Taiwanese medical school graduates, except those who obtain a diploma at medical institutes in the United States, Japan, the European Union, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong, must meet the requirement before participating in the state licensing examination. However, an amendment to the law put forward by the DOH and passed by the Cabinet June 4, as well as other revisions submitted by legislators from ruling and opposition parties, have coincided to end these exceptions, so that all medical school students educated abroad will have to sit the qualification tests and complete internship first. Although Yeh praised Poland's level of medical education, he said that as many as 150 Taiwanese students opt to study medicine in Poland every year. According to Yeh, Taiwanese students do not have to take an examination to enter Poland's medical institutes, but students from Taiwan who take courses in English are not allowed to practice in Poland after graduation. 'This is a strange system and it seems that Poland allows for the system to serve Taiwanese students,' he said. It is estimated that over 600 Taiwanese students are studying in Polish medical schools, whose desire to practice in Taiwan after they return from Poland might be lessened by the outcome of the law amendment. Thousands of medical students took to the streets in late May to demand that the government revise the law to level the playing field for local graduates. They were especially unhappy with students returning from Poland, saying that in recent years, local agents have made lucrative profits by recruiting Taiwanese senior high school students to study in the East European country, where the tuition is cheaper and the entry threshold is lower. In Taiwan, there is fierce competition among senior high school students each year for only around 700 local medical school places, which means only 0.7 percent of the some 100,000 high school graduates each year can find a place. 