FINAL MBBS EXAMS AT NUMED
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.
What’s the idea behind New Castle to enforce such rigidity?
ReplyDeleteThose 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.
DeleteI have enjoyed reading your post. I am appreciating your effort. You can also read more about: MBBS In Malaysia
ReplyDeleteI sincerely appreciate your updates..
ReplyDeleteI was looking to have my son Us Citizen(now in india) trying to pursue Numed this year 2021
Hi Dr.
ReplyDeleteMy 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 ?
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!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the reply. Can we check the Exam regulations.
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