Medical school aptitude test change delayed

Medical schools have delayed making changes to the controversial aptitude test used to select entrants but acknowledge that its use is causing a number of distortions for young people who wish to become doctors.

The deans of the five schools teaching undergraduate medicine are asking for the issue to be considered as part of a wider examination of college entry systems being undertaken by the Irish Universities Association.

But in a report on the Health Professions Admission Test, which has been used in combination with Leaving Certificate results since 2009, it has emerged that one third of medical school entrants since 2010 had repeated the test and got a place on foot of an improved score.

Professor Bill Powderly, dean of medicine at UCD who chairs the council of medical school deans, said a vacuum was being created on other courses. For example, 26% of the 434 people taking places in 2010 were abandoning other university courses they started the year before after getting into medical school with repeat HPAT results.

“I believe that, rather than tweaking HPAT here or adding bonus points there, we should consider university entry overall so that tackling one issue doesn’t create problems elsewhere,” sadid Prof Powderly.

Other findings were that HPAT has seen the proportion of medical undergraduates who had repeated the Leaving Certificate fall from 41% in 2008 to 17% in 2009.

But students who could afford commercial preparatory courses slightly outperform those who did not. On foot of this, the group recommends further practice materials be made available to all HPAT applicants to ensure wider access to the test format, and sample questions and answers.

The group is also leaning towards restricting medicine applicants to just one sitting of the HPAT to eliminate the advantage to those who repeat it, although the wording of their recommendation in this regard is open to interpretation. It said HPAT scores should be valid for a period of one year only, but that does not remove the possibility of results from a second sitting being counted.

The group had considered restricting applicants to counting Leaving Certificate and HPAT scores from one year only but this was not recommended.

The Institute of Guidance Counsellors has called for HPAT to be abandoned and welcomed the referral of the issue to the IUA.