The report of the Medical Education and Training Working Group clearly sets out future options for doctor training in the Republic. It makes recommendations that must be followed if we are to remedy the medical manpower crisis already affecting the health service. In addition, it spells out governance deficits in the training of doctors, "reflecting a medical education system in serious difficulty", that require urgent attention.
The working group, chaired by Professor Patrick Fottrell, past president of the National University of Ireland Galway, was set up in response to concerns raised by the Medical Council and a proposal by the former minister for education, Noel Dempsey, that graduate entry to a career in medicine be facilitated. The expert group outlines a number of development options. Notably, it recommends that the inexorable increase over 27 years in non-EU students receiving medical education here be revised. It says such students should be offered no more than 25 per cent of future training places. EU students, the majority of whom will be Irish, are to have the number of places available to them more than doubled, to a total of 725 per annum. The group suggests graduates of other disciplines be offered 40 per cent of all medical student places, phased in over a four year period.
Their report, however, does not endorse the setting up of graduate-only medical schools. Instead, it underlines the need to integrate a variety of students in every medical school. Whether this leads to more efficient production of better doctors is open to question. Nor does the working group grasp the nettle of costs, and while it concludes that secondary students should not be assessed on Leaving Certificate points alone, it fails to specify what other criteria should be used. While the report undoubtedly contains good news for aspirant doctors concerning the future number of training places and the increased variety of entry options to study medicine, it has some worrying messages for today's healthcare consumer.
Highlighting governance deficits and a wide variety of funding levels between the State's five medical schools, the Fottrell group notes clinical training is "effectively invisible" to those charged with assessing the quality of medical graduates produced by the current system. Such concerns are deeply worrying in light of recent medical scandals affecting patients in our health service. Whatever about the merits of increasing student doctor numbers to meet growing demand for GPs and consultants, the need to produce doctors of a uniform competency is a critical issue. The Medical Council and the Minister for Health must act on this finding without delay.