One Year On from the HPAT: Women still kicking ass.

tallaght01

2Scoops wrote: »

I'd like to see the source for the A-level part... but even if it's true, the LC is completely different to A-levels, so I wouldn't presume any equivalence.

I saw it on a slide at a med ed seminar a while back, so don't have any papers. But here's an interesting review article:

http://www.bmj.com/content/331/7516/555.full.pdf

I don't think a-levels will ever be a "perfect" predictor of success at med school and beyond, but they seem to have decent correlation with results at med school, and as one of HQvhs's abstracts cited below suggests, it correlates somewhat with time to membership attainment as well as final scores. the strength of the association is inconsistent, but it's a statistically significant difference, and it's the only exam I believe we can say this about in Europe or Australia (although GPA in previous undergrad degree correlates positively with med school success in Oz).

I'm interested you think that the LC is completely different to A-Levels. I'm no expert on A-Levels, though I did do 2 degrees in the UK. There's a difference in the number of subjects taken, but it all seems to be the same kind of exam, from talking to friends who took them, but I could well be wrong about that. They certainly seem nothing like HPAT.

just-joe

Could someone post a link to some research about why men don't perform as well as women in the LC? (cheers)

The reasons which have been stated so far seem to be completely anecdotal:

Men are more likely to practice sports (as another aside, lets start a thread about why that is:))- as someone said already, theres a leaving cert to study for, time to prioritise.

There are more language based subjects - also argued against already, there are a range of subjects to choose from.

Men and women develop at different rates - well this I really know nothing about, but are we really that different? Isn't self motivation the key factor in getting down to some study before the LC? Surely any human being who really wants to achieve something will do what it takes to achieve that - in this case, studying hard and scoring enough points. Maybe it is the case that women just want to become doctors more than men?

Scambuster

just-joe wrote: »

There are more language based subjects - also argued against already, there are a range of subjects to choose from.

Everybody has to do two languages at a minimum. Boys tend to perform better in engineering and numerate subjects like physics but a lot of schools do not teach these.
Studies on sports participation are widely available.

goose2005

Jane5 wrote: »

Whatever will they do about forcing the folk with uteruses (uteri?) out now? I mean, they introduced an extra hurdle designed to favour men with the expressed intent of more boys succeeding at the expense of girls-and the girls are STILL doing better.

The HPAT was never designed to favour boys, that was just an outcome which the IMO liked because male doctors work for longer.

Jane5 wrote: »

The fact is more women want to be doctors than men. More men want to be electrical engineers than women, however, curiously I saw no hand wringing and gnashing of teeth to bring gender balance to electrical engineering. Why?

Actually there's enormous and well-funded advocacy to get more women into STEM (science, tech, engineering, medicine), and special women-only scholarships.

The poster above who stated that medicine will have to become like other jobs and have options for normal everyday people who have families is correct. Medicine is not and should not be like joining the priesthood (or more appropriately, a nunnery )It should be possible to have a life and be normal, healthy and well adjusted while working as a doctor. It is in many other countries.

Email that to a surgical consultant and see what he/she says back to you. It takes lots of work, at very long hours, to become good.

Jane5 wrote: »

How in the name of all that is holy can the Leaving Cert be discriminating against men?? Even if we were to assume that for some reason rote learning, which there can be a lot of in the LC cannot be achieved by men (and hence they would be likely to do poorly as doctors anyway) there are numerous subjects that are considered to be more suited to male brains.

They could do Physics, Honours Maths, Chemistry, Business Studies, and the obligatory Irish, English and one foreign language. They could do bloody Tech Drawing. Why is that choice of subjects any more suited to women than it is to men?

Because a woman could do six linguistic/humanities subjects and pass maths, while a man is forced to take three languages.

Also, interestingly, I have known of two male doctors in the last six months who threw in the towel because of the lifestyle, one who left hospital medicine to do GP, and one who left medicine altogether because the hours were incompatible with their having a family and a life. It's not all the wimmin that leave just because they want babies.

Anecdotal evidence is pretty worthless - fact is, a far higher percentage give up.

just-joe wrote: »

Men and women develop at different rates - well this I really know nothing about, but are we really that different? Isn't self motivation the key factor in getting down to some study before the LC? Surely any human being who really wants to achieve something will do what it takes to achieve that - in this case, studying hard and scoring enough points. Maybe it is the case that women just want to become doctors more than men?

Well, you just ignored the point. Fact is, an 18-yr-old boy is probably the equivalent of a 16-yr-old girl - in almost all mammals, males mature more slowly.