Selection criteria towards competent and caring doctors

Introduction

Undergraduate medical education in Sri Lanka began in the 19^th Century with the short lived private medical school in Manipay (1848) and the Colombo Medical School (1870). After nearly a century other medical schools were opened and at present there are eight government medical schools. During this 160 years or so many global changes have taken place with regard to the concept of the role of the physician, doctor-patient relationship, primary health care, community-based healthcare, family medicine, mental health, conflict related healthcare, health of the elderly, investigative medicine, information technology and educational theory. These changes provided an impetus for a global change in the philosophy and direction of medical education. Thus the starting material, the student to be put through such a programme of training, has to be pluripotent and has to possess the minimum intellectual capacity, a favourable attitude of mind, and the potential to acquire skills, if they are to be moulded into ‘quality’ doctors. Several factors bear on the success of producing these quality doctors – one being purposeful student selection.

At present, according to the 2009/2010 University Grants Commission hand book, Sri Lankan medical students are selected on the basis of rank order on average z-scores obtained at the General Certificate of Education Advance Level (GCE A/L) Examination. Candidates should have obtained at least ‘S’ Grades in Biology, Physics and Chemistry and at least 30% in the Common General paper. Forty percent of available places are filled in order of z-scores ranked on an all island basis. Fifty five percent of available places are allocated to 25 administrative districts in proportion to the ratio of the total population of the district to the population of the country. Five percent of available places are allocated to 16 educationally disadvantaged districts in proportion to the population ratio as above. It is noteworthy that the university admission policy has changed no less than eight times in the last 40 years .

Is this the best possible method of selecting Sri Lankan students for medical studies? Are there selection methods in other countries of proven value which may be applied in Sri Lanka?