Good news, at last ?

Hello and welcome to another very late update of my blog... But I'm sure you will excuse the delay, because I have some very fresh and very important news. So important that I've broken my self-imposed computer use ban to post them... Read on !

A few days ago, I heard something on the grapevine about an imminent visit to our university by people from St.George's... Great, I thought to myself, after RCSI there's now yet another bloody medical school franchise that wants to strip UoM Medical School of its good lecturers and take over Mater Dei...

So I started asking around, to see what's going on (..again !).

One of the people I talked to was kind enough to show me a document circulated to all medical staff and signed by our dean. What this document said is that the UoM Medical School and the SGUL Medical School are looking into the possibility of setting up a four-year graduate-entry medical course together.

I don't remember the exact text, but it was pointed out that the partnership would be equal and that the new four-year programme will run in harmony with the existing UoM five-year programme. So the whole thing is not a franchise, and the UoM would actually be gaining financially from it ! Sounds better than the RCSI proposal to me...

All I want to know now is what they are planning to do to avoid congestion at Mater Dei, and how much time our consultants will have to devote to the four-year course. If they solve those two issues, then the news of this partnership are very good news indeed.

If anybody knows more, please share your information ! I'll keep asking around and will let you know what I find out...

Assisted inspiration needed :-P

Almost a month since the clinical students migrated to Mater Dei and almost a month since my last proper post on this blog... time really flies !

Despite being very lazy on the blog front, I did find the time to compile a short article for InSite, regarding the RCSI medical school issue. I must confess I am not an avid reader of InSite (or any other student publication, for that matter) but it does have quite a large audience and the more people that know about the issue, the better it is !!!

On the same topic (the proposition, not my silly article !), I heard that the ministry of education has yet to sign the RCSI agreement. Does anybody know if this is true and what are the reasons behind it ? Is it a true victory of the UoM or just a political trick, due to the forthcoming election ?


Last but not least : as most of you should have noticed by now, posts are becoming more and more scarce as time goes by. This is not due to a loss of interest, but due to a lack of both time and inspiration. And while there's nothing you can do about the former, you can help me with the latter by suggesting topics or sending questions... So go on and click that "publish your comment" button ! You know you want to !!!