FINAL MBBS EXAMS AT NUMED


The examination results for the Final MBBS Exams at
Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NUMed) have just been published. 12% of the cohort have failed, which is marginal improvement on the 16% failure rate last year. This compares with a fail rate of 3-4% in most UK medical schools, including Newcastle. A double digit fail rate of this order should raise eyebrows, especially in two consecutive years. The irony of course is that the vast majority of UK final year medical students were graduated in 2020 without sitting any final examinations, as a consequence of the pandemic, because they were needed for frontline services.

Of the 14 students who failed, 12 will have little choice but to repeat the final year, at enormous personal cost, emotional and financial, to themselves and to their parents, and perhaps to the public purse, as some of these students will be on scholarships. The two students, who have already repeated the final year once, will now be leaving the university.

Most universities, whether in the UK or Malaysia, public or private, give their Exam Boards a degree of discretion, especially when it comes to candidates on the borderline. The boards can take into consideration other factors, such as previous examination performance and in course assessments, together with any mitigating circumstances, such as the lack of any clinical bedside teaching once campuses were closed in March. Newcastle is however unusual in this respect, in that the board, which sits in the UK, is explicitly not given this flexibility. Last year, we had the debacle of students having to repeat the whole year, simply because they failed one component of the exam by as little as 0.1%.  The specious argument advanced is that this 0.1% somehow separates safe from unsafe doctors. This is manifestly not the case, as these newly qualified doctors will be intensively supervised in their first hospital jobs, and their performance can therefore be assessed in the round, as it was in the UK this year. Additionally the present system at NUMed does not allow for any resits of final exams in the same academic year for this cohort.

How can this possibly be fair to students at NUMed? Even national governments make U-turns when it comes to exams, but never NUMed- they are always right

The joke is that Newcastle may be easy to get in to, but is difficult to get out of!

 

Dr Al Amaladoss

Formerly Associate Professor (Clinical) in Psychiatry

NUMed.




Comments

  1. What’s the idea behind New Castle to enforce such rigidity?

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    Replies
    1. Those seem to be the rules as things stand, though cohorts doing the new curriculum (currently starting Y4) will be able to do in year resits. The UK Medical Licensing Exam which starts in 2023 will, as I understand it, still operate with these inflexible cut offs.

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  2. I have enjoyed reading your post. I am appreciating your effort. You can also read more about: MBBS In Malaysia

    ReplyDelete
  3. I sincerely appreciate your updates..
    I was looking to have my son Us Citizen(now in india) trying to pursue Numed this year 2021

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Dr.

    My son failed one subject in his 2nd Year exams and resat for the same. What will happen if he fails again. Can he continue to 3rd year and resit for the failed subject ?

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  5. As I am no longer at NUMED I can't answer this directly. It will depend on what the exam regulations stipulate- they will stick to it!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for the reply. Can we check the Exam regulations.

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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