Medical education poorly funded, claims council

Medical education in the Republic is inadequately funded and is overly reliant on fees generated by the teaching of overseas …

Medical education in the Republic is inadequately funded and is overly reliant on fees generated by the teaching of overseas students, according to a report published by the Medical Council yesterday.

The Review of Medical Schools in Ireland 2003, a report to the public by the Medical Council, said that 83 per cent of current funding for medical education comes from the fees of overseas students. There were 516 non EU entrants to medical schools here in 2003, who collectively paid €13.03 million in fees. The 315 EU entrants paid €2.63 million.

"The strategic implications of this situation are potentially very serious and require an immediate response from the government" the report said. While welcoming "the internationalisation of the student body", it said the almost complete reliance on overseas funding prevented "an effective relationship between medical education in Ireland and the Irish health service".

Referring to the implications for medical manpower here, the chairman of the council's education committee, Prof Tom O'Dowd, warned that "most non-EU medical students would not be available to the Irish State as long-term workers".

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"The manpower crisis will be quite acute in three to five years time", he said. "At present we are producing 320 EU and Irish doctors annually, while the Hanly Report says we need 767, so there is already a serious mismatch". Because 70 per cent of Irish doctors will be female in future, and may not wish to work in traditional ways, the situation will be compounded, he added.

The report also said the capacity of teaching hospitals to facilitate medical students had been reached. "The intake of medical students is now capped at 2003 levels for each medical school as capacity has been reached under our current teaching methods", it said, adding that "immediate steps must be taken to review capacity".

The Medical Council said it was also concerned to discover during its series of inspection visits to medical schools that students and interns (doctors in their last year of training) were experiencing bullying in the workplace.

"Interns are vulnerable and can easily become the butt of frustrations experienced by other staff grades in hospitals. Bullying and harassment of interns is completely unacceptable and while hospitals have policies in place, interns had not usually benefited for them," the report said. In the case of medical students, it noted that students who are bullied will suffer both personally and as doctors in the future.

Outlining the next step in the accreditation of medical schools, the council said it will introduce differential licensing of individual schools from next year. Depending on the standard reached by each university, a license for two, three or four years will be issued.