Argentina residencias

Overview

The Examen Único (also called the Examen Integrado or, in its multi-jurisdiction form, the Concurso Unificado) is Argentina's national multiple-choice entrance exam for health residencies. It is run jointly by the national Ministerio de Salud and the health ministries of the provinces that join the unified process, and it is the main gateway into residency training for newly graduated doctors and other health professionals. A single exam day, shared registration process and shared exam calendar replace the separate entrance exams that individual provinces and institutions used to run on their own.

Passing the exam does not by itself guarantee a residency place: it produces a score used to rank every candidate, and that ranking determines who gets to choose from the available residency vacancies across participating public, university-affiliated and some private institutions.

Who can apply

The call is open to graduates of medicine, nursing, biochemistry and other health-science degrees who want to start a residency (basic specialties such as general medicine, surgery, paediatrics and gynaecology/obstetrics, as well as post-basic specialties reached after an earlier residency). Candidates must already hold their degree, or be very close to finishing it, by the time of registration.

• Argentine graduates register with their national ID and university transcript/average.

• Graduates of foreign universities must present either a title revalidation (reválida), issued by an Argentine public university for degrees from countries with a reciprocity agreement, or a title convalidation issued by the Ministerio de Educación for other countries. This step can take many months and must normally be completed, or well underway, before the candidate can be confirmed for the exam.

• Registration is done online, exclusively through the Sistema Integrado de Información Sanitaria Argentina (SISA), followed by an in-person step to confirm documentation and become enabled to sit the exam.

Exam pattern

The exam is a single sitting of 100 multiple-choice questions, commonly given about four hours to complete.

Most questions are written as short clinical cases asking what the examinee should do next, rather than isolated recall questions. A small number of questions each year (roughly three to five) include an image, such as an ECG strip, an X-ray, a CT scan or a dermatology photo. Nursing and other non-medical health professions sit a version of the exam adapted to their own curriculum rather than the medicine paper.

Marking and results

Each question is worth a small, equal share of the total score (commonly reported as 0.5 points per item on a 100-question, 100-point scale). There is a minimum passing threshold, commonly reported as 50 out of 100 points; candidates below it are not ranked for residency placement. Passing the minimum does not guarantee a place — it only makes the candidate eligible to be ranked and to take part in the vacancy-selection process described below.

Results feed directly into an order of merit (orden de mérito): a separate ranked list is built for each specialty for basic medical residencies, with its own lists for nursing and for other health professions. Ranking position, not the raw score alone, decides the order in which candidates choose a vacancy.

Important dates

The cycle runs once a year, on a calendar the Ministerio de Salud publishes in advance; exact dates move from year to year, so always check the current cycle before planning around them. A typical cycle includes:

• Publication of the reference bibliography/topic list, some weeks before registration opens.

• Online pre-registration through SISA, followed by an in-person step to confirm documents.

• Publication of the final list of enabled candidates.

• The exam itself, usually held in the first half of the year.

• Publication of preliminary results, followed by final results after any review period.

For 2026, the Ministry has confirmed the Examen Integrado nacional for 30 June 2026 (basic specialties other than general medicine, and post-basic specialties) and 7 July 2026 (general medicine). Pre-registration through SISA for the 2026 cycle was reported to open on 6 April 2026. Candidates should confirm registration windows and exam dates for their own province or institution, since not every jurisdiction follows exactly the same calendar.

How to apply

1. Register online through SISA during the pre-registration window, selecting the competition(s) (concursos) of interest; candidates must register for the Concurso Nación to sit the Integrated Exam regardless of which jurisdiction's residencies they ultimately want.

2. Complete the in-person step with the required documentation (identity document, degree or proof of imminent graduation, academic transcript/average, and, for foreign-trained candidates, the revalidation or convalidation certificate) to be confirmed as enabled to sit the exam.

3. Sit the exam on the scheduled date at the assigned venue.

4. Review preliminary results when published, and the final order of merit once any review period closes.

After the exam

Once final results and the order of merit are published, candidates take part in a vacancy selection (adjudicación) process, usually run as a staged digital system: candidates are called in order of their ranking, within their specialty's list, to choose from the remaining open vacancies at participating institutions. Within a single site offering more than one vacancy, rules commonly limit how many candidates from the same originating discipline can be placed there, to keep the resident group varied.

Vacancies on offer typically span national, provincial, municipal, university-affiliated and some private institutions that have joined the unified process. A residency completed at an institution with a university agreement can lead to a university specialist qualification; one without such an agreement does not, even if the training itself is highly regarded. When accepted candidates later resign or fail to take up a place, unfilled vacancies are offered again in a further round (readjudicación).

Preparation tips

• Study from the official bibliography/topic list the Ministry publishes before each cycle rather than guessing at scope from a previous year's list.

• Expect most questions to be clinical-case vignettes asking for the next step in management, not simple recall — practise case-based multiple-choice questions, not just reading theory.

• Give paediatrics proportionally more study time, since it is consistently one of the heavier-weighted clinical areas.

• Do not neglect legal medicine, ethics and patient-rights topics (including informed consent and legally regulated pregnancy termination); these recur every year and are easy to under-prepare for.

• Practise interpreting a handful of common images (ECGs, chest X-rays, basic head CT findings), since a small but consistent number of questions each year are image-based.

• Start the title revalidation/convalidation process as early as possible if trained outside Argentina, since it can take many months and may need to be well underway before the exam.

FAQs