Hpat Ireland

arham khan

The HPAT Dissected To It’s Entirety

What is the HPAT? For many it’s just another aptitude exam, for others something to do with medicine and most importantly for leaving certificate students a barrier to medicine [not taking into account the usual sceptics!] For many of you who are not aware of it, students entering medicine nowadays have to take an aptitude exam in conjunction with the leaving cert in order to matriculate to college. Now students must achieve a minimum of 480 points in the leaving cert as well as mirror this success to an undefined extent in the HPAT.
When one starts to peel the edges around what has become the most talked about thing in Ireland since the famine they would discover that HPAT Ireland has it’s roots in Australia. HPAT Ireland is an exact mirror of the Australian BMAT except it is fifteen minutes shorter. Apparently there has been a recent fluctuation in the number of students studying medicine at a third level institution. So in order to manage this figure we, the irish have decided to essentially censor students. Once again we, the Irish have subdued ourselves to a bigger country or continent, Australia.
Now the only question that hangs is what was wrong with the ancient, as some might refer it to method for selecting students who wished to pursue medical studies at a third level. If the last method was so poor at selecting appropriate students why is it that Ireland is excelling in the medical sector? Why is it that 10 of the world’s top fifteen pharmaceutical and medical companies have their headquarters in Dublin? Why is it that nobody is dying on the street at the moment? Or did we simply just get tired of the old system and wanted to give something else a try.
Many of you reading this article may have extracted positive information related to the HPAT from other sources. In many ways I too regard the HPAT as something that will benefit Ireland in the coming years. However the HPAT may have to be tweaked and groomed before it is picture perfect. For those of you who disagree consider a simple analogy before making up your mind. When you go out to buy something expensive like a car you consider all the possibilities, try all the models and change your mind just about a dozen times before you are entirely satisfied and you actually buy it. Hence it seems logical that comissiun na srudaithe stait should experiment with the endless possibilities regarding the HPAT. It’s like what my teacher always says, “you can do as much as you want to make something perfect but there’ll always be room for improvement” i.e the recent incorporation of the HPAT into the Irish education system. That being said the HPAT isn’t perfect.
One aspect of the HPAT that strikes me is the need to obtain an outrageous 190+ points in it to realistically qualify for medicine. I always thought that the leaving cert was a test of the knowledge that a person acquires during his/her two year leaving cert cycle. Now approximately 3/7 of the maximum points acquirable through the leaving cert in conjunction with the HPAT can be acquired by a perfect score in the HPAT. ACER [Australian Council For Educational Research] claim that the HPAT tests a candidates ability to communicate with a patient and interpret emotions. This is true but why is it that the Department Of Education has set the maximum points acquirable in the leaving cert to 560? Why is it that an commissiun na scradaithe stait is restricting students to maximise their points through the HPAT. While it makes sense that a prospective medical college student should have some communication and interaction skills it however is not fair to only select students who have perfect communication skills. Realistically there should be a reasonably achievable passing score set in the HPAT. Praising students who have perfectly developed communication skills is derogatory towards other students. The sole purpose of the HPAT should be to identify students how have the ability to acquire such skills. Everybody learns at their own pace and once a student has the ability to acquire a certain skill then he or she should be given some time to learn and develop their skills. Consider the following analogy. Many types of students go into secondary school, those who know algebra perfectly and those who just about understand algebra. However at the end of secondary school nearly all the students are experts at algebra. It seems completely unfair to regard students who don’t know algebra before secondary school as unable to grasp the concept. So long as these student have a fair bit of knowledge about the concept of algebra they are fit to study it. Similarly prospective medical students should be given a chance to develop communication skills. The HPAT should just identify students who are capable of acquiring such skills. This however doesn’t mean just selecting students whose skills are more developed than others. Just because their skills are more developed this doesn’t mean that they are more capable for medicine than other students who may not excel to a similar extent in communication skills.
It’s true that the HPAT is essential for reducing the ever so increasing demand for high leaving cert points in order to study medicine at a third level. However there is no harm in setting a mininum leaving cert and HPAT passing score. There’s no harm in giving students the freedom to obtain 600 points in the leaving cert and a mininum passing score in HPAT. Ther’s no harm in giving students the choice to

jumpguy

Firstly, BMAT is the British test, UMAT is the Australian, I know it's fairly easy to mix them up!

The HPAT is not perfect, but your reasons for what is wrong is not clear (more paragraphs would help with the reading ).

Ireland's health sector and pharmacy sector isn't really affected by who gets into medicine. They take in all sorts of graduates, like pharmacy graduates, biomedical science graduates, etc. What does depend solely on medicine graduates is Irish hospitals and surgeries for doctors and the like. Ireland doing well in the medical technology and pharmacy sector has little to do with the quality of medicine graduates.

The health service in Ireland at the moment is appalling tbh. Yes, nobody is dying on the streets, but they are dying due in hospitals due to poor hospital conditions and such. However, nobody is suggesting this has to do with the quality of medicine graduates.

The reason the HPAT was brought in was to broaden the type of students who get into it, and more clearly, to even up the male:female ratio getting into medicine (which the HPAT has succeeded so far in doing). I think that while the HPAT is not perfect, it is definitely a step in the right direction. We don't need pretty much 600/590 to be guaranteed a place in medicine somewhere in the country any longer. It gives a chance to more people, more people see med as a possibility. It doesn't just depend on everything going perfectly in the LC anymore. It also gives people who can't afford to go to grind schools or pay 1000's in grind/tutor fees a chance.

The points for medicine is still outrageously high, and a lot of people still don't get in, what has changed is the type (and gender) of the people getting in has changed, and that's the aim of the HPAT.

Big Pussy Bonpensiero

What paper did yeh take that from?