EACH YEAR thousands of hopeful CAO/CAS applicants give medicine pride of place on their CAO/CAS list. The desirability of medical training is reflected in the points level which consistently exceeds 530 points in all colleges. In addition to points requirements, colleges specify subject requirements. A laboratory science subject is needed for UCG, UCD, UCC while TCD requires a higher-level B and a higher level C in science subjects. If physics is not included in the two science subjects, TCD requires an ordinary-level C in maths.
It's notable that in 1996/97 the last places were offered on the basis of random selection in three out of the four colleges in the CAO system. This means that a lottery applied with only some lucky students at that particular points level gaining a place. Therefore, students wishing to maximise their chance of getting a place need to include all of the colleges on their CAO form.
This year the Royal College of Surgeons has entered the CAO/CAS system for the first time. Places will be awarded purely on the basis of points. The interview has been suspended for one year but it may be reinstated. There are 40 places available for Irish applicants in 1997/98. Thirty five places will be awarded on the basis of Leaving Cert results.
Of these, five students will be awarded scholarships with full fee remission and a £1,000 bursary. The college's own entrance exam will be held after the Leaving Cert and there will be five scholarship places available here also. Typically one-quarter of the RCSI's intake each year is Irish and the remainder of places are reserved for overseas students.
In total about 350 places are available in medical schools in the Republic including TCD, UCG, UCC, UCD and the RCSI. All of these colleges, except the RCSI, are in the free fees scheme. RCSI fees are tax-deduct able at the standard rate and students may apply for maintenance grants in the normal manner.
Education for doctors does not end with six years in medical school. They next spend one year as an `intern' in a hospital. After this, the bad news begins. It's back to competition time as the number of interns far exceeds the number of structured training posts available. If you want to end up as a consultant in a particular speciality, structured training is a must. Many doctors head abroad at this stage and a period spent training abroad is almost a necessity to obtain a consultancy.
Conal Devine, head of industrial relations with the Irish Medical Organisation, explains that for the 350 interns coming out every year there are enormous difficulties with respect to the number of actual training posts within the system. There are about 2,000 junior doctors in the system, upwards of 33 per cent of them non-nationals, who take up posts which have no value in training terms. Irish and EU doctors will look at posts only in terms of training value, says Devine.
At the moment there are 55 first-year general practitioner training posts. In total, if you look at the three-year training period, there are 165 doctors in training altogether. There are about 60 senior registrar posts - the fast track to consultancy and a very small number of public health training positions. There is a huge body of non-consultant hospital doctors outside this.
There has to be an increase in the number of consultancy posts from the present 1,200, says Devine. That is vital if the bottleneck is going to be eased.
"I will repeat our warning to those contemplating medicine as a career," says Devine. "Look at the hard statistics. These are all extremely bright young people at the top of the pile where exam results are concerned. They should think about an alternative to medicine as a career. We still want to see good people coming through but not everybody will come through at the end. That's the statistical reality."
