The way it's done at the university I work for is this:
The first year of Health Sciences (Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Physiotherapy, MedLab Science, a couple of other specialties) is all open entry.
The kids are worked hard -- they study biology, human anatomy, biochemistry, some physics I think, a bunch of useful stuff. They also do the UMAT test, which is designed to make sure that people going into the healthcare professions are actually able to relate to other human beings, rather than being callous robots.
At the end of that first year of study they apply for Med, Dent or whatever it is that they want to pursue as a career. Entry to the programmes is based on a combination of their marks (did I mention these kids are worked hard?) and their UMAT results.
So by the time they get into Med School, Dental School etc they're nineteen, got some study habits, got a better idea of who they are and what they want to do.
They still work stupid, dangerous hours as junior doctors (and I can't help wondering whether some of the hand-wringing about the number of women in the profession is the number of juniors suddenly standing up and saying "I'm not working a 48-hour shift"), but there's lobbying for that to change.
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Date: 2008-04-04 06:43 pm (UTC)The first year of Health Sciences (Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Physiotherapy, MedLab Science, a couple of other specialties) is all open entry.
The kids are worked hard -- they study biology, human anatomy, biochemistry, some physics I think, a bunch of useful stuff. They also do the UMAT test, which is designed to make sure that people going into the healthcare professions are actually able to relate to other human beings, rather than being callous robots.
At the end of that first year of study they apply for Med, Dent or whatever it is that they want to pursue as a career. Entry to the programmes is based on a combination of their marks (did I mention these kids are worked hard?) and their UMAT results.
So by the time they get into Med School, Dental School etc they're nineteen, got some study habits, got a better idea of who they are and what they want to do.
They still work stupid, dangerous hours as junior doctors (and I can't help wondering whether some of the hand-wringing about the number of women in the profession is the number of juniors suddenly standing up and saying "I'm not working a 48-hour shift"), but there's lobbying for that to change.