A national assessment centre that would evaluate a candidate's fitness to be a doctor would provide a much fuller profile in terms of academic performance and personal qualities, a leading expert on medical education said yesterday.
The centre could also offer an insight into the person's understanding of what it means to practise medicine.
Former dean of medicine at University College Cork, Prof William J. Hall said countries such as Australia and New Zealand were already using these techniques to determine entry to medicine and it was time for Ireland to follow suit. It would be preferable to the proposals of the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, for a graduate system of entry, which would be counter-productive in terms of achieving a better social balance of doctors.
"Those who favoured graduate entry to medicine in the belief that it would produce a better social balance among medical students are wrong because, in effect, only the better-off families can afford to keep their children in third level for the additional three or four years that graduate entry would require," he said.
"Graduate entry could lead to an exodus of our best students to the UK where direct entry from school is the norm," Prof Hall told 185 medical graduates at the 150th graduation from UCC's School of Medicine.
Prof Hall suggested the way forward was a dual entry system involving both direct entry from school and graduate entry, with the balance between them to be reviewed as circumstances changed.
He said a national assessment centre would involve taking account of the manpower needs of the different branches of the health service in the selection of students. He pointed to a recent survey of non-consultant hospital doctors which found that only one in five was interested in becoming a general practitioner.