SMH - Too many doctors in the house (1 Viewer)

[Lexicographer]

An interesting article in the SMH, kudos to Alvin for posting it in UNSW Med forum.

Too many doctors in the house
By Debra Jopson
May 7, 2005

IN ANATOMY lessons, they look at, but do not dissect, bodies. If they cannot make it to lectures early, they have to file into a second lecture theatre, where a video link feeds the lecturer's words to them. "We had labs last year meant to be for 12 students and we had 60. You had people crowding around trying to see a chemical reaction," said Gemma Winlo, a second-year medical student at Sydney University.

In the hospitals, the groups of medical students following consultants around has swelled, sometimes to eight. "It's not nice for the patient, having … students coming in a big mob into a little cubicle," she said.

This is life for first- and second-year students in the university's hard-pressed medical faculty, which took in 274 new students this year, and 252 last year, under the Federal Government's scheme to boost doctor numbers.

"Getting into medicine is such a difficult process. Once you're here it's a bit of a shock to find the system can't handle you," said Winlo.
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Eight years ago, the intake was 117, of whom 12 were international students. Despite the "bulge", HECS places have dropped in the past two years. This year, there are 59 new international, and 15 domestic, fee-payers. International students pay about $150,000 for a four-year postgraduate degree.

Dror Maor, the president of the Australian Medical Students Association, of which Winlo is a council member, said the pressure of numbers was a nationwide problem. "The Government said, 'We need all these new doctors. Let's have new medical students.' Now we have more, but not the funding and the infrastructure."

Sydney University's dean of medicine, Andrew Coats, said there would be "short-term pain while we try and crank up". Eighteen new staff had been appointed and some learning rooms had been expanded, but it would take time to set up new lecture theatres and student accommodation, and to increase hospital capacity.

His faculty, with an annual turnover of $170 million, was used to finding extra funding because government grants to the university had dropped to below 20 per cent of total funding in the past seven years. The true cost of funding each medical student was $250,000 a year. The Federal Government gave the faculty $15,500 a student each year - plus $8500 in HECS fees if it was not paid up front, he said.

Phil Huang, a third-year student, said that in Britain he saw pathology labs with one tutor to three students. Here, students had to find many answers to practical questions in their textbooks. "You have 60 people packed into a room. You're trying to see. You're trying to learn off slides. You're trying to learn off one person at the front. It's really hard to get that information."

He had paid $1000 to do an anatomy course in his own time. "It's not the university's fault. We all love where we are. But we can't deny that things are slipping a little bit and the Federal Government is not doing very much."

Professor Coats said dissection had been dropped because it was a 19th-century way of learning, and streamlining the curriculum meant "that some of the detailed surgical anatomy can't be given to everyone in their medical student years".

 

[inasero]

yeah thats the problem...apart from the Go8 universities, there are no universities which have sufficient infrastructure to handle a medical course and so the government is cramming students into the existing medical schools, as well as importing deregistered medical practitioners who cannot practice elsewhere because of their incompetence.

I can say this is the case in Monash...our year is pretty tough with 15 students to a cadaver. Thats why they have to compromise on teaching quality and reduced the practical session from 1.5 hours to 45 minutes, allowing two groups of 7-8 students.

I can only imagine how hard it is going to be for the year below us...300 students...ouch...

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

300.. :| omg. .thats the size > Adel + Flinders cohort

 

[mervvyn]

we have 240 and i think the year above is ~215... you wouldn't want to have too many more than what we have now, for the same reasons as in the article - clinical and other small group learning things suffer. You have to love the cost saving ingenuity of combining 1st + 2nd year as well...

 

[inasero]

300.. :| omg. .thats the size > Adel + Flinders cohort

yeah but adelaide and flinders are small scale schools anyhows its not a fair comparison

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

yeah but adelaide and flinders are small scale schools anyhows its not a fair comparison

still its massive.. that would make 600 students in the state.. i kno but thats goin to strain the resources.... real bad..

 

[Lexicographer]

Considering the government underfunds each individual place, it's just unfair on the whole damn country to have things going this way. You might get more doctors eventually, but we'll be crap.

 

[ishq]

Do a high percentage of First Year students drop out/fail? If so, it should increase the number of students in the next cohort dramatically....?

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

Do a high percentage of First Year students drop out/fail? If so, it should increase the number of students in the next cohort dramatically....?

see tats the thing... most of the eastern unis cant realli afford to fail ppl cos of the lack of places but if they do this they will..

 

[inasero]

yeah and another point is losing revenue...they get a rebate from the gov't for every HECS place they run (equivalent to full fee - Band 1 HECS fee)...so in order to be failed you have to either:

a) be really crap at a course

or

b) hate that course with a passion

 

[Mambomeg]

thats crazy! 15 students to a cadaver? we have a max of 5 to a dog, and 10 to a horse, and a horse is a lot bigger than a human!

thats really strange, we have about 120 ppl per year in vet, and you wouldn't want any more than that, or you loose quality of teaching and learning. And i would assume the cost of teaching a vet and a med student would be much the same in terms of equipment etc, and hours of teaching.

oh and the thing about importing unregistered doctors... i know that one of my lecturers came here from germany, and her vet degree wasnt recognised here, so she couldnt get registered, it wasnt because she wasn't a good vet. She can work as a lecturer, but not a vet, its a bit strange. It might be the same with doctors, their degrees might simply not be recognised by the AMA, it doesnt mean they are any less valid, it jst means the uni they went to hadnt been through the rigmarole of becoming accredited.

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

to get regged as a doc its thru the state health dept and the AMC.. not AMA (medical rep body.. lik political)

degrees are usualli easy to standardised... lik cos u make them sit exams lik the USMLE (google it...).. to get medical licence issued... and most nations med schools are based on similar teaching and standards.. but the exams or sitting a bridging course then the exam usualli is enough..

 

[inasero]

hows adelaide treating you alvin?

oh yeah

i got a pic of my room

post it up for ya!

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

hows adelaide treating you alvin?

oh yeah

i got a pic of my room

post it up for ya!

im cold.. my room is covered in medical books.. 0_0 i should be working but cbf..
had a 8 hr day today.. STRAIGHT no breaks..

adel is treating me lik i was a whore to beat around..

kewl room pics.. ill get mine up too some time..

 

[Lexicographer]

thats crazy! 15 students to a cadaver? we have a max of 5 to a dog, and 10 to a horse, and a horse is a lot bigger than a human!

thats really strange, we have about 120 ppl per year in vet, and you wouldn't want any more than that, or you loose quality of teaching and learning. And i would assume the cost of teaching a vet and a med student would be much the same in terms of equipment etc, and hours of teaching.

oh and the thing about importing unregistered doctors... i know that one of my lecturers came here from germany, and her vet degree wasnt recognised here, so she couldnt get registered, it wasnt because she wasn't a good vet. She can work as a lecturer, but not a vet, its a bit strange. It might be the same with doctors, their degrees might simply not be recognised by the AMA, it doesnt mean they are any less valid, it jst means the uni they went to hadnt been through the rigmarole of becoming accredited.

Yes, but horses are much easier to come by than cadavers.

Hi guys, I've got room photos to post too. Lots of changes to my room's layout over the past two months though, need to take more photos next time I get it clean.

 

[kimmeh]

Holy shit, 250 students in med? .. ..

robert: Definitely (re: horses). Dont you have to actually have consent from the person/family to work on it? Im sure theres a bazillion legal rights on this. Im not 100% sure of this is the case for animals, but for me, i work in a group of three on a dog. I agree with meg, in my year, theres like 140 students and you can see a deterioration in teaching quality already. There usually isnt enough demonstrators around helping you in the dissections. Meg's grade had a high drop out rate, (30 she said after first year) and some of the people i know are anticipating that about the same amount of people will drop out from our year so that the resources free up and a bit and theres less competition for jobs. I think 140 is way too much for the vet faculty to handle, mind you, its X5 as well. But the thing is, they've taken alot of international students this year for the fees and money because our faculty is pretty much underfunded.

 

[inasero]

oh hey Kim, would be nice if you could refrain from blaspheming against the name of God thanks!

Anyways....for pics of my new place in Melb click here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/inasero/IMGP0863.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/inasero/IMGP0864.jpg

You sort of mentally have to attach the second picture to the first...

edit: i just noticed how different my room looks now! It's not so empty and theres my trusty red beanbag and electric guitar under my bed

 

[Lexicographer]

Hehe I love the cables. I don't see any mention of the Divine Name though.