The future of GEP medicine, any ideas?

[kingdizzii]

Greetings from beautiful ol' Edinburgh!

During the 2012 UCAS cycle what happened with GEP dentistry seemed to be nothing short of drama. I've spoken about my cousin here before, she applied to GEP dentistry and for 2012 entry Kings and Barts bailed out. Peninsula was the saving grace but now while she is (hopefully) fine they have also bailed from GEP dentistry. What's happening now with Peninsula is that the GEP dental course has been turned into a 5 year undergrad degree from 2013 onwards with grads having to sit GAMSAT. UCLan, Kings and a couple others remain GEP only however I would think it will be sooner rather than later that they change their tune. Peninsula was the biggest GEP uni, I was expecting them not to budge.

The reason all of this happened was due to an EU law, from what I understand (still remain unsure) it has been around for a long time but suddenly someone realised that the GEP dental unis are not 5 years unlike EU dental unis. That's basically it, the GEP dental unis came under scrutiny due to being 4 years in length, not seen any news that the students whom have graduated from the GEP dental unis are any less competent than the 5 year students but that's for another day.

While none of us are fortune tellers, what is the general consensus with GEP medicine? I've heard a lot of doom n' gloom about it due to the financial uncertainty, if GEP dentistry is anything to go by it does seem possible to convert the GEP unis to undergrad ones. One positive is that GEP medicine does not seem to have been affected by the EU law due to the two foundation years.

Is it just a case where we don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow, just cross our fingers and hope beyond hope that GEP medicine remains?

[Zedd]

I'm not sure about EU law regarding this but if you can fit the necessary modules into 4 years then in what way isn't it an accredited degree like it's 5 or 6 year siblings?

Tbh, I'm inclined to say that professional degrees ought to be graduate entry only in the same way that they are in the US.

[Iceman10]

I'm not sure about EU law regarding this but if you can fit the necessary modules into 4 years then in what way isn't it an accredited degree like it's 5 or 6 year siblings?

Tbh, I'm inclined to say that professional degrees ought to be graduate entry only in the same way that they are in the US.

Its the number of teaching hours or something along those lines. Medicine gets away with it because the foundation years are counted as teaching on top of the 4 previous years, dentistry doesn't operate like this.

The 4 year dentistry course is definitely in trouble as the EU ruling suggests that the course shouldn't allow for 4 year courses because of the number of teaching hours. Both graduate medicine & dentistry are also at threat because of the fee increase, although the fees have increased all the government has done is move the fees from one balance sheet to another.

[NorthernLight]

I agree with Zedd, I've thought for a long time that something like Medicine should be graduate entry only, but then I would say that since that's how I came to it......
Seriously though, some of the people I've studied with and who are now qualified doctors are . . . well, let's say they still have a bit of developing and growing up to do.

[Profanius]

Hey kingdizzi

As pointed out in this thread...

I don't want to panic anyone but.......

...it's all down to amendments in the EU directives concerning medical qualifications. They now stipulate that medicine must be 5500 hours of supervised instruction/tuition over a minimum of 5 years. There was a rumour that this was going to be 6 years in line with most EU medical schools, but this never made it past the proposal stage. In the UK the F1 counts as supervised instruction, so GEM counts as 5 years, and is the same as year 6 in most EU med schools. The only difference is we get paid for it!!

I don't see EU legislation as a threat to GEM since all member states have to agree to any changes and GEM is big business Poland as well. I don't see our government abandoning GEM any time soon since, as a nation, we are not self-sufficient in training doctors (the NHS imports nearly 40% of its doctors) and it is far more cost effective to train our own doctors than pay for locums etc. The drop out rates for GEM students are also far lower than for school leavers and it's cheaper to train someone for 4 years than it is 5.

I don't see the financial situation for students improving any time soon, and GEP students may well be paying more in future, but with an average of 10 applicants for every GEP place the Unis could double their fees and still probably fill every seat.

[zed.a1]

Greetings from beautiful ol' Edinburgh!

During the 2012 UCAS cycle what happened with GEP dentistry seemed to be nothing short of drama. I've spoken about my cousin here before, she applied to GEP dentistry and for 2012 entry Kings and Barts bailed out. Peninsula was the saving grace but now while she is (hopefully) fine they have also bailed from GEP dentistry. What's happening now with Peninsula is that the GEP dental course has been turned into a 5 year undergrad degree from 2013 onwards with grads having to sit GAMSAT. UCLan, Kings and a couple others remain GEP only however I would think it will be sooner rather than later that they change their tune. Peninsula was the biggest GEP uni, I was expecting them not to budge.

The reason all of this happened was due to an EU law, from what I understand (still remain unsure) it has been around for a long time but suddenly someone realised that the GEP dental unis are not 5 years unlike EU dental unis. That's basically it, the GEP dental unis came under scrutiny due to being 4 years in length, not seen any news that the students whom have graduated from the GEP dental unis are any less competent than the 5 year students but that's for another day.

While none of us are fortune tellers, what is the general consensus with GEP medicine? I've heard a lot of doom n' gloom about it due to the financial uncertainty, if GEP dentistry is anything to go by it does seem possible to convert the GEP unis to undergrad ones. One positive is that GEP medicine does not seem to have been affected by the EU law due to the two foundation years.

Is it just a case where we don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow, just cross our fingers and hope beyond hope that GEP medicine remains?

Its the number of teaching hours or something along those lines. Medicine gets away with it because the foundation years are counted as teaching on top of the 4 previous years, dentistry doesn't operate like this.

The 4 year dentistry course is definitely in trouble as the EU ruling suggests that the course shouldn't allow for 4 year courses because of the number of teaching hours. Both graduate medicine & dentistry are also at threat because of the fee increase, although the fees have increased all the government has done is move the fees from one balance sheet to another.

So we initially had 6 GEP courses for Dentistry this time last year:
Peninsula - 64 places
Barts - 20 places
Aberdeen - 20 places
Liverpool - 15 places
UCLan - 32 places
Kings College London - 30 places

For 2013 entry, Barts have suspended their 4 year GEP dentistry course and Peninsula (Plymouth) have changed their course to a standard 5 year one which is now open to mainly A-level applicants. It's such a shame that prospective dental applicants have lost 84 GEP places over 1 year, I'm still unsure of what the future holds for the remaining 4 year GEP dentistry courses.

[kingdizzii]

So we initially had 6 GEP courses for Dentistry this time last year:
Peninsula - 64 places
Barts - 20 places
Aberdeen - 20 places
Liverpool - 15 places
UCLan - 32 places
Kings College London - 30 places

For 2013 entry, Barts have suspended their 4 year GEP dentistry course and Peninsula (Plymouth) have changed their course to a standard 5 year one which is now open to mainly A-level applicants. It's such a shame that prospective dental applicants have lost 84 GEP places over 1 year, I'm still unsure of what the future holds for the remaining 4 year GEP dentistry courses.

What happened with GEP dentistry is a real shame, nothing to do with finances but rather some EU law that has been around for ages but just got discovered now. Kings 4 year program seems to be on rough waters, Peninsula giving up was a warning shot seeing as though they were the biggest GEP uni. On the Kings website for dentistry 4 year (might have changed as of late, enjoying holiday and just got on the computer for 5 mins now ) is says the GEP is still subject to approval or whatever.

The cousin got into Peninsula, she really wanted to go Barts but you know what happened with them. Things were really looking up as well, Aberdeen started their GEP dentistry not long ago and had there not been a problem with the law I do believe graduate dentistry would have expanded.

[cptKernow]

Not sure why the same logic doesn't apply to the VP post-graduation year in dentistry as to the FY1 in medicine. That would have seemed to get around the problem.