The approval of a new graduate medical school at University of Limerick (UL) by Minister for Education Mary Hanafin means there will now be a radical change in the way doctors are educated, The Irish Timeshas learned.
In a major shift from the curriculum followed by most undergraduate medical schools, students will be taught clinical skills from day one of the four-year course. This will be achieved by students practising examination skills on each other. They will learn how to carry out intimate procedures such as vaginal and rectal examinations using actors playing the role of patients.
The Limerick course, which will admit 30 honours graduates of other disciplines in September this year, is based on a problem- based learning system first developed at McMaster University in Canada. Students will be posed clinical problems based on real cases and will "solve" the problem in small groups led by a tutor.
And while they will study medicine, surgery and other specialities when attached to hospital teams, in a major change, students on the new course will spend six months of the final two years based in general practice.
Commenting on the significance of this development, Prof Paul Finucane, foundation head of the UL medical school, said: "This is hugely important for increased recruitment in general practice and is equally relevant for those who become specialists."
Other changes mean that medical students at UL will no longer dissect full bodies in anatomy classes. And they will follow specific patients with chronic diseases throughout their course, attending GP and hospital appointments with the patient.
A major aim of the new course is to provide doctors who are "fit for purpose" and who are socially accountable.
"We need a different kind of doctor for the future," Prof Finucane said. "We have to produce doctors that have a broader concept of medicine and who are not just diagnosticians. They must be communicators, teachers, researchers and advocates for good public health, as well as playing an active part in resource allocation in the health service."
With a greater emphasis on educational outcomes, UL medical students will have to master more than 130 clinical conditions before they are declared safe to practise medicine. They will be treated as active team members and will have supervised patient responsibility, rather than being passive observers.
The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) started a graduate entry programme last September for both non-EU and EU graduates. With a track record as an educational innovator, the RCSI will take in 30 EU students in 2007.
However, no postgraduate places were allocated this year to established medical schools in University College Dublin, University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin and the National University of Ireland Galway.
Candidates for graduate entry sat an aptitude test last Saturday which, along with their degree results, will determine who gets offered a place.
Subject to the approval of the Higher Education Authority, the cost of the new course will be in the region of €25,000 per annum, with students expected to pay about half this amount.