99 And Still Counting

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday December 18, 2008

Margie Sheedy

Think carefully before throwing your top marks into a medical degree, writes Margie Sheedy.

THERE'S a certain cachet in being offered a university place to study medicine, dentistry or veterinary science. Parents are proud. Teachers are thrilled. But the consensus now among educators is that a mark of 99.5 does not necessarily mean you'll make the best doctor, dentist or vet.

"There are people who understand what the professions are about and who want to pour their heart into it," Professor Neville Yeomans, foundation dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Western Sydney, says.

"And then there are the ones where the marks they achieve and their parental and peer support have shaped their decision-making; where 'don't waste the marks' is a commonly heard comment."

Which is why the universities have slowly but surely been changing the playing field.

"If we had looked at just UAI [the University Admission Index], we would have needed a mark of 99.5 as a starting point, as 400 of the [current] applicants are looking to score above 99," Yeomans adds.

"This is evidence that they are very good at studying but would they make good doctors?"

For most medicine, vet science and dentistry courses, the UAI is now considered in a mix of tests to filter these high-profile and high-demand courses.

As well as providing UAI estimates, applicants for most medical and oral health courses also have to sit the Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test (UMAT), an aptitude test that is held earlier in the year (see umatweb.acer.edu.au/).

Associate professor Paul McGreevy of the University of Sydney says veterinary science students are asked to complete a commitment statement and questionnaire to demonstrate their "commitment to vet science - that they have spent time with healthy animals and animals in a veterinary context".

Many universities then use a round of interviews to whittle down their lists of prospective life-science students.

Head of the new school of dentistry at Charles Sturt University, Professor Ward Massey, says: "We believe that academic merit is not the sole determining factor in being successful in dentistry."

Yeomans draws on organisational psychology principles to further test students' suitability for medicine.

"The questions asked in our interviews try to draw on the real things they've done in their lives. We use the interviews to find our rank lists. They're all very bright students but the ones who fail are mostly in the wrong course."

Medicine

Being able to empathise with people is now an important criterion in most medical schools around Australia for determining who is accepted to study.

Students who previously would have been overlooked for entry because they did not attain a particular UAI, such as indigenous students and those from rural and lower socio-economic areas, are now considered.

However, they still have to demonstrate to interview panels that they are capable of the task ahead.

"We have aimed, from the beginning, to make a significant contribution to increasing the number of indigenous doctors in Australia," Yeomans says.

"They are very much under-represented, yet the health problems of indigenous Australians are much worse than for the rest of the population - and a doctor with whom patients can identify easily because of shared language and culture has some obvious advantages when it comes to caring for their patients."

One such doctor-in-training is Alison Craigie-Parsons.

"I doubted my own ability to do it when I was younger and, financially, Mum and Dad weren't able to support me," says the 34-year-old indigenous student, who was accepted into the University of NSW School of Medical Science last year.

Instead, she continued to live at home after finishing school and studied for a bachelor of arts at Deakin University.

Today, with her husband and newborn baby by her side, she says she is determined to become a pediatrician.

"I think the Aboriginal community is crying out for more Aboriginal doctors," she says.

"Knowing more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island doctors will break down the barriers and health will hopefully improve.

"I got into medicine through the Rural Clinical School's Aboriginal pre-program and I think I should give back to these programs when I finish."

Dentistry

Enticing health practitioners, particularly dentists, doctors and vets, to regional and rural areas is seen as something worth fighting for, according to university educators.

At the forefront of the battle is Charles Sturt University's $65.1 million School of Dentistry and Health Sciences, which accepts its first students to the Orange campus in central-west NSW next year.

The response to the five-year bachelor of dental science degree has been overwhelmingly positive, Massey notes.

"There have been reports in the past, particularly in pharmacy, which show good retention for students who study in regional areas, even up to five years after they have graduated," he says. "Certainly, we expect dentistry to follow in the same fashion, which would go a small way towards fixing the disparity between rural, regional and metropolitan areas."

The first students to go through the CSU dental school will have a lot of interaction with and immersion in the community, he adds.

But will this be enough to keep the students, many of whom have come from Sydney or other capital cities around Australia, practising in a regional area?

"The aim of the program is not only to produce a dentist who is competent to work all around Australia but also to have graduates with a unique understanding of the issues in inland areas," Massey says.

"The range of dentistry skills will be identical to ones learned in the city - this is not a regional-only version.

"But because our clinical training involves working with area health as well as our own clinics in Dubbo, Orange, Bathurst, Albury and Wagga, they will come away with a unique understanding of what's required, the opportunities in these regional centres and they will discover the advantages of living in a small community."

Veterinary science

Veterinary science is often one of the courses for bright students to strive for.

"There's something quite beguiling about the prospect of working with animals," McGreevy says. "It's something so many people want to do."

Every year, the course is oversubscribed heavily but applicants are not always cut out for the realities of being a vet, such as the blood and saliva that often is part of every day.

Many applicants have a genuine love of animals but do not consider that most of the animals they will come into contact with will be sick.

"You are dealing with animals that often are in discomfort or pain and it's important for students to know how to deal with this," McGreevy says.

This is why the university is focused on recruiting prospective students strategically, so people with a real passion for animal welfare can become vets.

"For example, our rural entry scheme, which will commence in 2010, will allow students with evidence of a rural background to get in with a slightly lower UAI, because we want to train more vets who understand the rural sector," he says.

There are three broad areas of practical veterinary work - equine, production and companion animals.

"Some students will change their preferences for small or large animals through the exposure they get to these animals throughout their five-year course," he says.

While employment prospects are "brilliant", he cautions that the starting salary for a graduate vet is not exceptional.

According to the latest data from Graduate Careers Australia, the median starting salary for a graduate vet is $40,000 (see box).

"The financial rewards are not immense, unless perhaps you own your own practice," McGreevy says.

"So it's important for us to make sure that prospective students have seen how vets work and what's involved. A demonstrated passion for animals is a necessity."

MONEY TALKS

Annual median starting salaries paid to bachelor degree graduates aged under 25 and in their first full-time employment in Australia:

Medicine: $50,000 (males, $53,000; females, $50,000)

Dentistry: $70,000 (males, $75,000; females, $69,000)

Vet science: $40,000 (males, $41,300; females, $40,000)

* Source: 2008 Australian Graduate Survey, Graduate Careers Australia

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home