Medical students have welcomed the government’s agreement with the University of Malta on how clinical resources will be used once Barts Medical School is set up, yet some of their concerns remain.
Student representative Alexander Clayman said that, while the agreement gave the University’s medical school legal permission to operate at hospitals, describing this as “a step in the right direction”, a number of aspects remained to be clarified.
“For instance, the term ‘placement’ has been left open to interpretation. There is no indication of how many clinical hours each student will have access to, nor any indication of future student-doctor ratios,” the fourth year medical student said.
The government has guaranteed 200 placements for medical students each clinical year once Barts opens its medical campus and St Luke’s hospital starts being run by the private sector. If more than 200 students apply, discussions would be held to see what could be done to ensure no students are left out. Students had, for months, been asking the government for information on how clinical resources would be used once other medical schools started using the hospitals’ resources, yet were never given any specific information.
Capacity at the hospital was one of their main concerns, since students and consultants were already working at a ratio of seven to one and they feared having more students sharing the same resources could hinder students’ learning abilities.
Representatives from the University’s student council, KSU, and the Malta Medical Students’ Association said they had now seen the agreement and, while they believe it allowed for the possibility of expansion of the University, a number of the students’ concerns were not addressed.
“Having a second medical school in Mater Dei will present a lot of challenges to the current medical school, including the increase of medical students on the wards, as well as possible poaching of lecturers who teach within the University medical course.”
Both KSU and MMSA said they would continue to work closely with the faculty of medicine and its students to ensure the government’s promises were kept and that these concerns did not materialise.
Martin Balzan, secretary general of the Medical Association of Malta, said initial information about the agreement was “satisfactory”.
MAM had said it would only agree to sign a similar agreement if the University’s requirements were met. Dr Balzan said that, at this stage, this could happen anytime soon.