Letters
Health services administration Ethics
Volume 198 - Issue 7

Only the best: medical student selection in Australia

Author:  Dev A Kevat

Med J Aust 2013; 198 (7): 366-367. || doi: 10.5694/mja12.11697
Published online: 15 April 2013
To the Editor: I share Mahar’s concern regarding any future screening of prospective medical students for signs that they are likely to develop mental or physical impairment.1 Although Wilson and colleagues do acknowledge that screening may not be ethical, the separate issue of their seeming conflation of likelihood of illness with impaired ability to practise in the long term is problematic.2 Mental illness, and particularly ...
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To the Editor: I share Mahar’s concern regarding any future screening of prospective medical students for signs that they are likely to develop mental or physical impairment.1 Although Wilson and colleagues do acknowledge that screening may not be ethical, the separate issue of their seeming conflation of likelihood of illness with impaired ability to practise in the long term is problematic.2 Mental illness, and particularly depression and anxiety, are common disorders in medical students.3

Even in the context of medical schools’ “fitness to practise” procedures, which Wilson et al consider more practical, it is important that criteria and processes for removal of students are not so broad that they can be applied selectively. Further, the tendency for the medical mind to seek to eliminate personified risk factors of future problems should be resisted; further research may not be “paramount”.2 It is not the possibility or probability of developing later illness that matters (dark actions wait at the end of that uncertain path) — individuals should be judged on the acts that demonstrate potential harm to patients.

Students and society will benefit if the attitude of schools to students suffering illness is one of compassionate support — many students’ conditions may improve. We should also not neglect the current weakness of our own “postmarketing surveillance” — our management of colleagues whose behaviour is far from ideal. We struggle with the fact that they, unlike students, are cloaked with the tribal defence of Fellowship, though this should not change our judgement of their actions — as it certainly does not change their harmful consequences.

Author

  • Dev A Kevat1
  • 1. School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC.

Correspondence: dev.kevat@monash.edu

Competing interests

I have previously worked for Monash University in developing materials for use in medical student selection interviews and as a selection interviewer. I have also worked for the Centre for Medical Officer Recruitment and Education at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.

References

View this article on Wiley Online Library

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