Superking25 Posted January 2, 2008 Report Share Posted January 2, 2008 "Want to be a doctor? Try your luck The University of Sydney's medical school may turn its admissions process into a lucky dip and scrap applicant interviews in the biggest overhaul of its selection policy in 10 years. The proposals are among options being investigated by a working party to ensure admissions to the university's most prestigious course are fair and snare the best students." http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/want-to-be-a-doctor-try-your-luck/2008/01/02/1198949899989.html Why not! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madz25 Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 hmm interesting...there is a certain amount of luck involved in the current process anyway... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMmd Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 yeah it's not really new, in Netherlands they use a lottery system to select candidates. It hasn't been less effective than any other methods of selection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citan Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 The "only" drawback is that you cannot buy multiple tickets for a single school. I'd certainly send 10000 applications to a med school if I could. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostintime Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 But why is it considered 'lottery' if people with higher marks have a better chance? It's not really like they're randomly selecting high school students and going "Let's randomly pick 250 of the graduates". A lot of systems don't have interviews, i.e. China as well, but there is much less competition to get into med school there because it's not really as prestigious and they don't get paid as much in comparison to business or engineering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bustylegs Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 A lot of systems don't have interviews, i.e. China as well, but there is much less competition to get into med school there because it's not really as prestigious and they don't get paid as much in comparison to business or engineering. I would beg to differ... I think physicians in countries such as China are still very much respected by the public, despite minimal financial disparity between medicine and other professions. The competition to get into medical school is equally, if not more competitive than in North America. From my understanding, marks from an annual national exam decides whether a candidate is accepted into med school, and the mark cut-off for medicine has always been one of the highest among professions such as law or dentistry. I'm not from countries such as China where med school entrance is decided by a national exam, so if I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostintime Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 I would beg to differ... I think physicians in countries such as China are still very much respected by the public, despite minimal financial disparity between medicine and other professions. The competition to get into medical school is equally, if not more competitive than in North America. From my understanding, marks from an annual national exam decides whether a candidate is accepted into med school, and the mark cut-off for medicine has always been one of the highest among professions such as law or dentistry. I'm not from countries such as China where med school entrance is decided by a national exam, so if I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me. I'm not sure about law/dentistry, but engineering and commerce are definitely more prestigious than medicine in China. It is determined by the national exam, but the highest cut-offs are definitely not for medicine, like they are in North America. Especially with the SARS incident, many people are not applying to medicine in China compared to previous years. I'm not saying people completely don't respect doctors at all..of course they do, if their lives depend on it. But it's not as prestigious as other Asian counterparts, i.e. in Taiwan and Hong Kong where doctors get paid a lot. I hate to make a generalization about salary and competition, but often that's how things work. If you knock down the salary, the competition goes down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Law Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 I would beg to differ... I think physicians in countries such as China are still very much respected by the public, despite minimal financial disparity between medicine and other professions. The competition to get into medical school is equally, if not more competitive than in North America. From my understanding, marks from an annual national exam decides whether a candidate is accepted into med school, and the mark cut-off for medicine has always been one of the highest among professions such as law or dentistry. I'm not from countries such as China where med school entrance is decided by a national exam, so if I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me. In Iraq, national exam determines if you can go into medicine and medicine is considered very prestigious over there. As for admissions by lottery - that's stupid in my opinion. It wasn't all random, as indicated earlier (you get more tickets with higher marks) - but I think with the plethora of admission process styles that schools in Canada exhibit, that we are doing a solid job at selecting qualified applicants. Of course, some of these processes need to be evaluated - but I think that while some luck is involved, quite a bit of true skill is also required in the admission process. I don't see how a school can justify "well luck is involved, so let's admit everyone based on luck"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vip_138 Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 in sweden they have a lottery for the super students for 5% of the seats, then the other 95% of seats are for those who write a national exam (cut-off) which gets you an interview. What i think i like about canada is that we have such diversity in selection factors across canada, which allows different types of students to get in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avenir001 Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 In Iraq, national exam determines if you can go into medicine and medicine is considered very prestigious over there. aaah...thanks for sharing ur reasons for choosing medicine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avenir001 Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 in iran as well, there's a national exam and cut-off for med is among the highest, if not the highest. actually, i really like the national exam method...because even tho u do it when u're 18, u have to have the dedication/hard work/maturity/brains to do well...it's way bigger/tougher that the mcat and u have to know what u've been learning in school for the past few yrs inside out...once u score well, u get to choose ur profession...if u don't like ur score, u can spend another year preparing for it and take it again...u dont have to waste ur time in undergrad, paying $$$, not knowing where u'll end up. and yes, there is no interview...but in my opinion, interviews can only really identify the most extreme personalities...everybody else can learn to fake it...a few ppl i know who've been accepted here would never have gotten in if they hadn't pretended to be someone they're not. anyway, end of today's lecture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bayervillager Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 One of my elder cousins is a Nephrologist in mainland China. Based on what I hear from her, I wouldn't say that medicine is very difficult to get into in China right now, or prestigious, at least when compared to engineering or commerce. Years ago when she chose medicine as her field of study, people kept on asking her "why a smart girl like her isn't in engineering". And like lostintime said, the SARS crisis hasn't helped either. By the way, does anyone want to guess what she get paid/year in salary? 30,000 Chinese dollars, which is the equivalent of $5000 Canadian dollars. Of course, that $5000 is somewhat supplemented by the standard practice of "red pockets" of cash that patients give to doctors as "gifts" (a somewhat shady practice from our point of view as North Americans...) My other cousin who graduated from Comp. Sci 3 years ago make way more than her and he doesn't have to do 1 in 4 call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Law Posted January 3, 2008 Report Share Posted January 3, 2008 in iran as well, there's a national exam and cut-off for med is among the highest, if not the highest. actually, i really like the national exam method...because even tho u do it when u're 18, u have to have the dedication/hard work/maturity/brains to do well...it's way bigger/tougher that the mcat and u have to know what u've been learning in school for the past few yrs inside out...once u score well, u get to choose ur profession...if u don't like ur score, u can spend another year preparing for it and take it again...u dont have to waste ur time in undergrad, paying $$$, not knowing where u'll end up. and yes, there is no interview...but in my opinion, interviews can only really identify the most extreme personalities...everybody else can learn to fake it...a few ppl i know who've been accepted here would never have gotten in if they hadn't pretended to be someone they're not. anyway, end of today's lecture. nooo it's bad, because if you do bad - then you're disqualified from achieving your dream! and no test can quantitatively dictate on its own who is fit for medicine and who isn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avenir001 Posted January 4, 2008 Report Share Posted January 4, 2008 no it's not...it's standardized and it's fair...if u do bad, u try again and again and again...if u still don't do well enough and u're tired, u go with something less competitive that u've met the cutoff for. if u have to let go of ur dreams, at least u know it's not bcuz u couldn't afford to volunteer with 3874 organizations, couldn't travel the world, aren't an athlete, aren't a club executive, don't have connections, didn't get a 10 in VR , some random guy didn't find u suitable for med based on ur ABS, or u didn't "click" with ur interviewers. i'm not saying u have to have all this to get accepted here, but there are definitely more variables here that u can't control for... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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