27th September 2004
Our great communicator Marian Finucane resolved the whole argument about the unnecessarily high points required by students who seek entry to our medical schools on one of her shows recently. She had Professor Muiris Fitzgerald and Professor Ciaran Bolger in to discuss the matter. At the end of an interesting debate it was agreed, and we all knew this in the first place, that if the government allowed more places for European Union students, which includes Irish, the points required would be lower.
Let me say it again, the points are so high, 570 in Trinity this year, because the Government and its agents allow only 300 odd places for E.U. students to be provided each year in our medical schools. All the other students are from outside the E.U. and their fees, twenty to thirty thousand Euro per year, subsidises the shortfall in funds for the medical schools from the Government.
Michael Martin, T.D. has been criticised for commissioning and producing so many reports and being one of those who is at the receiving end of them they do appear to come thick and fast. But the most depressing thing about them is that, despite the excellence of many of these reports, no one seems to take a blind bit of notice of them.
For example, the Report of the National Task Force on Medical Staffing, the so called Hanly Report. Forget all about the bits about Accident and Emergency and so on and look at the section on personnel required to run the health services, in particular the number of doctors required. Chapters 3 and 4 are particularly enlightening. The European Working Time Directive and the provisions of a consultant led service are addressed therein.
So, why doesn't the present Minister for Education go into the Cabinet and say, "Look at this, I've solved the situation regarding the high points for medicine. We just need to double the number of places and we need every last one of the doctors we will produce".
He can re-enforce his argument by quoting the recent statistics from the Central Statistics Office showing that our population is now over 4 million, the first time since 1871 we had so many persons in need of medical care. The number of births in 2003 was 62,000, about a 20-25 per cent increase since the early 1980's when the number of medical students each year was fixed. He can talk about our ageing population and the fact that they will need more doctors to care for them. He can talk about our obesity and the ills that brings and the need for diabetologists, oncologists, cancer surgeons, cardiologists and so on, not to mention family doctors imploring patients to change their lifestyles and his fellow cabinet members will agree with him at once.
Indeed, the Government will be united in deciding to treble or quadruple the ridiculous amount of money given to the medical school to produce good doctors and all will be well. Noel Dempsey will be praised by one and all and Michael Martin will be able to say that at least one bit of Hanly has been implemented.
Even with the increase in the number of places to between five and six hundred some people who would like to study medicine will still be disappointed. In the Good Old Days when I arrived in Trinity with 120 others to mill around with agriculture students, would-be vets and dentists, we medics were told that only sixty of us, the top sixty, in the year exams would proceed into First Year. I don't remember anyone saying it was unfair, it was just considered to be "life". (Some demographer had worked out that too many doctors were being produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, hence the guillotining of the would-be doctors. When we qualified we were each offered three jobs, such was the shortage.)
All of you will be amazed to hear Minister Dempsey is keen on another solution, all those with over 450 points will do some sort of aptitude test for medicine. How many thousands of students from the European Union, Ireland included, will this involve and how much will it cost? Is it even constitutional to treat students applying for medicine in a different way to those applying for other courses?
Back to Michael Martin's reports. When he was Minister for Education and Science in 1997 he set up a Commission on the Points system. This body, chaired by Professor Aine Hyland, Department of Education, University College Cork made its final report in 1999. Has Minister Dempsey read it, is what I would like to know?
To quote from it, "The commission sees no advantage in introducing ability/aptitude tests for third level selection for school leavers in this country" (page 55). It also states that "The Commission does not recommend the use of personality tests for third level selection" (page 56). Why are we setting up an expensive educational experiment which was recommended against five years ago?
The Commission also looked at the Student Assessment Tests (they began life as Student Aptitude Tests but the name was soon changed) in the United States of America and the grind schools to which students go to get good grades in them. Indeed, they are now seen as giving so much advantage to middle class students who have the money to go to them that Californian students in public schools are given assistance to learn how to do the tests. There is not a universal leaving school examination in the United States and this is how they came into being in the first place. Other means of entry were addressed too but the Commission did not recommend them. Do please read this report before deciding our C.A.O. system is so bad.
A young friend of mine, of Irish extraction but living in Belgium applied to come to Trinity on the basis of her International Baccalaureate but not to take up one of our precious medical places you'll be glad to hear. She applied to some British Universities, too. When told she had been accepted by Trinity, "How did they decide to let me in?" she asked me. "Solely on your academic ability", I was able to tell her. "Well," she told me, "You should have seen the essays and tests I had to do to try to get in elsewhere". I think the fairness of our system certainly influenced her decision to come to Ireland although she was accepted by some British Universities, too.
Graduate entry is fine, we are doing this already and it can be expanded. But has the Minister thought of the costs to the medical schools of dealing with people with little scientific background. It will be great to have well educated people amongst us but someone will have to pay up and if past and present performance is anything to go by it ain't going to be the government.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
