Have I gone mad?

[ailbhe]

Rise in women doctors 'worrying' (Note scare quotes.)

Comments

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

I got really curious about the whole admissions thing, so asked my friend who'se an Associate Dean at UWE to help me find some references online. We didn't find anything specifically relating to medical schools, bt here are a few examples:

From "Policy Statement on Equality and Diversity and Code of Practice on Equal Opportunities for Students", University of Essex, p1.5:

"Criteria for admission must relate to a student's estimated potential to succeed academically on a course."

The rest can be found at http://www.essex.ac.uk/academic/docs/regs/equalop.shtm.

Also, from the "Admissions to Higher Education: Fair Admissions to Higher Education: Recommendations for Good Practice", a Steering Group Review headed by one Professor Charles Schwartz at the behest of Charles Clarke during his tenure as Secretary of State for Education and Skills:

"Principle 2: A fair admissions system should enable institutions to select students who are able to complete the course as judged by their achievements and their potential"

This one's a PDF so I don't have a link, but you get the general drift.

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

This is certainly true for courses in general (it's true of the one I recruit for, for example). I've been told that medical school admission is different. For example, they place a great emphasis on how the student handles ethical questions, although ethics is much less prominent in the course than it is in the interview. Although of course there *is* ethics in medical courses, someone who finds ethics difficult will still probably do just fine as a medical student. The reason for emphasising it in medical school interviews is because it's considered important for judging who will be a good doctor. But I have nothing verifiable to point to for this, it's all out of conversations.