Volume 197 - Issue 11
Is the Melbourne MD a misnomer?
Author: Richard M Hanney
Med J Aust 2012; 197 (11): 617. || doi: 10.5694/mja12.10914
Published online: 10 December 2012
Published online: 10 December 2012
To the Editor: It is truly difficult to understand by what standard the University of Melbourne defines its MD degree, which it commenced in 2011 to replace its previous MB BS degree. Several things are abundantly clear, however.
The educational standard is distinctly short of the traditional British and Australasian higher doctorate degree. The University of Melbourne clearly recognises this itself, as it has renamed its own ...
To the Editor: It is truly difficult to understand by what standard the University of Melbourne defines its MD degree, which it commenced in 2011 to replace its previous MB BS degree. Several things are abundantly clear, however.
The educational standard is distinctly short of the traditional British and Australasian higher doctorate degree. The University of Melbourne clearly recognises this itself, as it has renamed its own medical higher doctorate degree a Doctorate of Medical Science.1
The exercise allows the University of Melbourne to circumvent the phasing out of fee-paying places for domestic students in undergraduate programs, which was imposed by the federal government in January 2009, and include fees for domestic students in the newly labelled postgraduate program.1 The University of Melbourne website earlier this year indicated that the fee an Australian domestic student would pay for an MD degree was $228 678. In the increasingly competitive market for lucrative international medical students, an MD degree may appear more attractive than the traditional British and Australasian bachelor degrees.
The University of Melbourne initiative generates substantial confusion in the workplace. The new MD degree is not intended to represent the same qualification as the traditional British and Australasian MD degree, yet the nomenclature is identical. It replaces the MB BS program, yet the nomenclature is distinctly different. How will employers, editors or patients interpret this new and confusing qualification? Perhaps as a postnominal qualification it should be required to be displayed as “MD (U Melb)” to distinguish it from the higher qualification with which it may otherwise be confused.
Many other universities are eyeing this sad development in the Australasian tertiary education sector with concern, intending to follow suit by converting their own bachelor degrees in medicine to similarly badged MDs, so as to not be unfairly disadvantaged.
It seems that the University of Melbourne, having reformed its program to the level of an extended masters degree (as defined by the Australian Qualifications Framework2) is seeking to label the resulting degree as a doctorate-level degree in defiance of that framework.3
Competing interests
No relevant disclosures.
References
- University of Melbourne. Handbook: J15AA Doctor of Medical Science. Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 2009. https: //handbook.unimelb. edu.au/view/2012/J15AA (accessed Aug 2012).
- Australian Qualifications Framework Council. Australian Qualifications Framework. Adelaide: AQF, 2011. http://www.aqf.edu.au/Portals/0/Documents/Handbook/AustQuals%20Frmwrk FirstEditionJuly2011_FINAL.pdf (accessed Aug 2012).
- Roberts-Thomson RL, Kirchner SD, Wong CXJ. MD: the new MB BS? Med J Aust 2010; 193: 660-661. https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2010/193/11/md-new-mb-bs