More boys opting for medical careers as ‘safe option’

Boys who get top results in the Leaving Certificate may be applying in higher numbers for medical degrees because they see it as a safer career in a downturn.

A study in the Irish Medical Journal found no definite impact of the HPAT (Health Professions Admission Test) on the gender of entrants to medical schools since its introduction in 2009.

Siún O’Flynn, Anne Mills, and Tony Fitzgerald from University College Cork’s school of medicine analysed Leaving Certificate and HPAT results of boys and girls who applied for undergraduate medicine and success from 2009 to 2011. They also looked at success rates by gender in Irish students gaining places at the five undergraduate medicine degrees, of which just 490 were offered in August.