Rectifying the unfair treatment of some applicants taking university entrance exams must move forward while taking the actual conditions at medical facilities into account.
A spate of problems has been uncovered in entrance exams for university medical schools. Juntendo University and Kitasato University treated female examinees and those who had spent several years preparing to retake the exams unfairly. Nihon University gave priority to children of its alumni.
In a written survey conducted by the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, each university had said there were no inappropriate admission cases. They should seriously reflect on their conduct.
Juntendo explained that it capped the number of successful female applicants because there was a shortage of rooms in the dormitory for women. But even after increasing the number of women's dormitory rooms, the university accepted female applicants from other faculties and continued to suppress the number of medical students, so that explanation does not hold water.
The university also claimed it uniformly lowered the interview scores of women as a "measure to help" men because their communication ability is not as developed. This can only be described as tortured reasoning used to justify restricting the number of successful female applicants.
Last month, the Association of Japanese Medical Colleges established rules for medical faculty entrance exams. The rules ban selection methods that uniformly manipulate the scores of women and those who have been waiting for another chance to enter university. Assessing each and every applicant is the main premise of entrance exams, based not on their attributes nor lumping them together.
The association also called on universities to publicly disclose in advance their criteria for passing based on their plans for accepting students, including admissions for students recommended by their high school, entering through internal advancement or through special quotas, such as those for certain areas.
Address staff shortages
Kanazawa Medical University and Kobe University secretly gave preferential treatment to applicants from specific regions. If these universities had done this openly, they might have gained a degree of understanding from these regions.
To ensure these rules are effective in the years ahead, each university must take steps to disclose details about their selection of entrants. The only way to erase misgivings harbored by examinees is to publicly release the pass rate for female and male applicants and for those taking the exams after previous failures, depending on the number of attempts.
Medical schools are in a unique position because they are directly linked to the nation's supply of doctors. An approach that includes working together with university hospitals and other entities will be vital for rectifying the unfair entrance exams.
"Previously, other doctors covered for female doctors while they took time off before and after they gave birth. The increase in female doctors made it physically harder [to meet staff shortages]." This passage from a written explanation giving background to the entrance exam rules gives an insight into the anguish felt at some hospitals.
The results of a survey indicated at least 60 percent of doctors showed some understanding for Tokyo Medical University manipulating test scores to restrict the number of female entrants. Of course, unjust methods are unacceptable, but the aim of fixing problems arising from the increase in female doctors is understandable in some respects.
Female doctors tend to be more heavily concentrated in medical departments where it is easier to go home on time and that have relatively few work shifts on holidays. Even if entrance exams that are the door to medical schools are made impartial, imbalance in the departments doctors work at after graduating will create strains within the medical system.
Couldn't staff numbers be bolstered through steps to improve the treatment of doctors working in demanding hospital departments? Crafting a system that can cover for more female doctors is an urgent task.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 14, 2018)
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