New gender ratio for medicine defended

THERE WAS “no great sinister plot” in the changed gender ratio in offers for medical degree courses, the head of academic medicine at Trinity College Dublin has said.

Prof Shaun McCann was defending his support for the 52 female to 48 male ratio in medical place offers as a result of a new aptitude test for medicine.

The introduction of the health professionals admission test (HPAT) has benefited males and reversed the trend of previous years in which significantly more women were admitted to medicine.

However, support for the increased gender balance by a number of medical academics has been criticised by former minister for education Gemma Hussey.

“It is a bad day when the head of medical schools and distinguished professors are welcoming the exclusion of clever young women,” Ms Hussey wrote in a letter to The Irish Times, which was published yesterday.

“An increase in male entry was not an objective of the new system” but it “was certainly anticipated” because women tend to do better in the points system, a spokesman for the Higher Education Authority said yesterday.

The spokesman said that among current medicine students, 75 per cent are female, compared to 59 per cent female across the university sector.

The National Women’s Council of Ireland said it was “amazed” by the Government’s ability to address gender imbalance among medical students “considering its reluctance to do so in other areas”.