Madam, - Prof John Crowe's article in your edition of September 8th deserves further consideration. This month, many of our brightest 17- and 18-year-olds will prepare the career statements needed for application to medical schools in the UK.
They foresee little prospect of obtaining the 570-plus Leaving Certificate points required by an Irish citizen for entry to an Irish medical school. Those who are successful and train in the UK are unlikely to return.
Ironically, the best chance an Irish citizen has of getting into an Irish medical school is if he or she holds dual Irish and non-EU citizenship, allowing application as a non-EU citizen, for whom more than half the places in Irish medical schools are reserved.
These non-EU, fee-paying students face less stringent academic entry criteria. On graduation, most return home and contribute little to the Irish health service.
The result is, as Prof Crowe pointed out, that there are simply not enough medical graduates in this country to maintain current services. Ireland is now completely dependant on foreign non-consultant hospital doctors who have not had the perceived advantages of an Irish education.
Soon there will be active recruiting of consultants and general practitioners in Eastern Europe and the Indian subcontinent. How can this continue when the brightest and best of our own Leaving Cert students cannot gain entry to places already available in Irish medical schools? Is there some ideological block between the Departments of Education and Health?
Graduate entry may be seen as a solution, yet it will prolong overall third-level education by two years. And who will train these additional students? Does it make economic sense to open new postgraduate medical schools? The answer is: only if graduate entrants pay fees, possibly €24,000 a year.
The cost of increasing the number of Irish students in the current five- or six-year undergraduate cycle is the difference between the current subsidy and the economic cost, perhaps €16,000 per student per year. The cost is the same, the training quicker and arguably the education better. Why not allow those who can pay to take up currently available places in medical school and subsidise those who cannot. Action is needed now for next year's Leaving Certificate students.
The crisis is now, the cost of action is moderate, the price of inaction is incalculable. - Yours, etc,
P RONAN O'CONNELL MD, FRSCI, St Kevin's Park, Dublin 6.