Medical students are frustrated that they will have only 3 days to apply for work for after they graduate, because of faculty inefficiencies. The Third Eye were contacted by anonymous students that wanted to air their concerns regarding the issue.
It is that time of the year again when fifth year medical students need to apply for work. After having finished their 5-year, or more, course and taken their June exams, students or rather, fresh graduates immediately start working. To do so, these fifth-year students need to apply for work during the first half of the month of October – specifically from 1st to 12th October. There is a fixed guideline students must follow to apply, part of which requires students to submit a Dean’s statement. This is where the frustration ensues.
The Dean’s statement is issued after both the actual and the revision-of-paper results of the resit sessions are published. Aside from the fact that students must pay for this statement, this year it has not even been issued yet – the reason being that the revision of papers have not yet been published.
Sources confirmed that the Dean’s statement will be issued after the faculty meets to confirm the medical students’ marks and respective rankings on October 9th. Once this ranking is confirmed, and the Dean’s statement is issued students can then finally apply for work. By then only 3 days will be left for students to apply. This inefficiency understandably worries the concerned students and is the main reason for which we were contacted.
Incidentally, this is the first year ever that applications are to be submitted online. It is common knowledge that the system will probably not handle the influx of applications. Students are fearful that amongst them, some will have a hard time applying, or simply have their applications left out. However, we have contacted MMSA regarding this issue, and we were told that they will liaise with all relevant stakeholders to ensure that this will not be the case. Aside of this statement, MMSA are in no way connected to this anonymous opinion piece.
The Faculty of Medicine has always and continues to work diligently to support its students. However, it is issues like these that crop up from their side and unfortunately tend to understandably preoccupy students at times.