Row as surgeon students from five universities fail exam

[schumi]

Johannesburg - An investigation will be launched to look into whether there was nothing irregular in the common final examination that has been “shockingly” failed by all would-be surgeons from five universities.

All candidates from Wits University, University of Cape Town (UCT), University of Pretoria, Walter Sisulu University and University of the Free State who received their Fellowship of the College of Surgeons (FCS) exam results a week ago failed.

The FCS exams are administered by the Colleges of Medicine of South Africa (CMSA), which ensures that universities produce quality medical graduates.

Only candidates from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University (SMU) and Stellenbosch University (SU) passed the exams.

Out of 46 candidates from eight universities that wrote the FCS, only 15 passed. The 10 candidates from UKZN all passed and so did the two from SMU, while three from SU obtained the pass mark.

The 31 failed candidates won’t be invited to the oral exam to be held between 14 and 18 October. This is the ultimate step to becoming a professional surgeon.

“We remain shocked at this particular result and very concerned about it,” Dr Flavia Senkubuge, president of the CMSA told The Star yesterday.

“We usually have round about 80% and above pass rate for the college of surgery for the written examination. This time around we had a 44% pass rate,” Senkubuge said.

She revealed an internal moderation found the results to be correct. An external moderation was now being done by international surgery experts.

“What we’re going to institute is a full investigation into the exams. The idea of the full investigation is not just to look at an exam itself. It’s to look at things much broader.”

But the probe plans have preceded by a row that has included allegations of question paper leaks, racism and that the FCS was structurally flawed.

More at: https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news...nts-from-five-universities-fail-exam-33650499

 

[pinball wizard]

Meh. Just advance them like in high school. It's not like people's lives will be at stake.

 

[wbot]

Cool, I see the race card has been played again as usual.

 

[lumeer]

Cool, I see the race card has been played again as usual.

That's disappointing indeed, coming from such a senior academic. I might have expected such utterances from a politician, but not from a university professor. I think that Wits should take steps against this person. You cannot simply throw around such allegations of racism.

 

[ponder]

Let them loose on the population, why do we even need exams?

 

[John Tempus]

Exam and racism in the same page.

So can I conclude that the people who failed were all black ? Or is this racism argument inclusive of all races ?

 

[The Voice]

Well, someone who scrapes through is still called a... doctor. I'd rather have them fail outright and get booted than out there attempting to treat/butcher people.

 

[KleinBoontjie]

Millennial doctors.....takes a selfie for his Instagram page, while doing a heart transplant and while waiting for an reply on the Heart transplant Whatsapp group to what artery attaches where.......

 

[Techne]

Let surgery be decolonized. No need for it when the witch doctors can serve their clients in a system without any structural flaws.

 

[Bewlen]

F#k tog

 

[konfab]

Shocking thing to find that meddling with quotas produces inferior results.

 

[Dairyfarmer]

Out of 46 candidates from eight universities that wrote the FCS, only 15 passed.

15 out of 46 = 32.6%

“We usually have round about 80% and above pass rate for the college of surgery for the written examination. This time around we had a 44% pass rate,” Senkubuge said.

And you are surprised?

 

[krycor]

Well, someone who scrapes through is still called a... doctor. I'd rather have them fail outright and get booted than out there attempting to treat/butcher people.

Then I suggest you never go for any operation in SA as almost all medical specialists repeat the exams particularly the aesthetics one.. granted that’s the harder of the specialist study you can do.

This isn’t exactly a race thing either so to the racists.. careful now . This is why if you look up how long it takes to be a specialist a range of time is given.. and if I recall you decide when you ready after completing all stuff needed.

But yah I don’t see the issue, you fail, you go back you continue working under supervision etc. Sometimes I wonder if people actually would take this approach with IT.. you know, you fail or have no degree.. you out. But no.. we need to make exceptions there hey and don’t tell me about it being different.. eg screw up on traffic systems and lots more people die.

 

[Mila]

The worrying thing Is the one university that had a 100% pass mark when everyone else failed. I would also be asking questions

 

[krycor]

Ps. Pretty sure the surgeon specialist one is easier?

 

[RedViking]

I am more concerned of those who passed. They should start the investigation there and then move onto the others.....

 

[thestaggy]

Amazing that the default reaction is to call racism.

Christ this country needs to be nuked in to oblivion so we can start over.

 

[krycor]

Millennial doctors.....takes a selfie for his Instagram page, while doing a heart transplant and while waiting for an reply on the Heart transplant Whatsapp group to what artery attaches where.......

Yup but this is across industries.. millennials are different. Sometimes I wish people would stop being racists and actually realize that age or era people are brought up in have a bigger impact on success. Granted this varies vastly based on culture.. the millennial and gen y group look like trouble across all races haha.

It’s funny if you think about it.. back in my day if you wanted to be an engineer, u go to varsity and study engineering else you can never have “engineer” in title including software. But these days that’s too hard hey, we need to allow people to shortcut process and then respect & pay them as if they actually did the work.

You can see why people hate talking to me about education related topics.. I still call people technicians, technologists etc

 

[dj2381]

Maybe the paper was too white.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Granted it is odd that only 3 universities managed to produce students that passed.... but the whole chain needs to be investigated to see where the failure occured... if the universities with students who all failed didn't teach them correctly then there needs to be refunds and tutoring to get up to speed and give those students and second chance at the exam after the tutoring. If it was a case of marking being flawed then correct it, etc...