MedEntry wins court case against Dallas Gibson of Icarus College / Medical-Entrance / PreMed!

MedEntry sued Dallas Gibson in the Federal Court of Australia for breach of copyright and breach of the Trade Practices Act (Claim number VID1289-2004). The action related to the copying and sale by Icarus College of practice exams authored by MedEntry.

Judgement was handed down by the Federal Court on 2nd July 2008. The Federal Court found that Dallas Gibson breached MedEntry's copyright. Dallas Gibson's cross-claims against MedEntry were dismissed by the Judge.

A full transcript of the judgement will be published when it becomes available.

Icarus' Dallas Gibson BANKRUPT

Dallas Gibson of Icarus/Medical-Entrance/Premed is currently bankrupt. He has been bankrupt since 28 September 2007 - he has now been bankrupt on three separate occasions (1990, 2001 and now).

You can view the Federal Court ruling of his bankruptcy by clicking here . Alternatively, you can go to the Federal Court website and click on the 'Yes' link under 'Document':

http://esearch.fedcourt.gov.au/Esearch?p=further_details&det=coa_order&mat_id=3527846

In addition to being sued by MedEntry, Dallas Gibson is currently being sued by Middletons (his ex-lawyers - Claim U02414246) and by Doherty & Colleagues Solicitors (acting for Maxim P/L) in the Melbourne Federal Magistrates court. Grievances against this man and his practices run deep and are widespread - he has been sued by three separate entities in the last 2 years. He owes substantial amounts of money to numerous organisations, such as Middletons Lawyers, Maxim Electrical Services, PBB Forensics, Clik Pad and Deloittes.

His websites are full of false, misleading and deceptive information. Would you put your trust or your child's education in someone who has been bankrupt not once, not twice but three times and is currently bankrupt?

MedEntry wins Foundation for Australian Youth Grant!

We are extremely delighted to announce that we have been offered a generous grant by the Foundation for Australian Youth to pursue the MedEntry initiative.

After a competitive selection process, the Foundation has deemed that our initiative, which aims to help Australian Youth, is worthy of funding to enable us to offer our courses and materials to you. The aim is to enhance youth participation and create opportunities for the development of young people. Specifically MedEntry aims to help Australian youth keen to pursue a career in the health sciences.

MedEntry invited to speak at AGM

Dr Ed Boyapati of MedEntry was the Keynote speaker at the Annual General Meeting of the Melbourne Division of General Practice held on Friday 21 October. Dr Boyapati spoke on the topic "Medical Student Selection: Issues and Current Trends" which was an 'extremely entertaining and challenging presentation' (NorthWest Courier, Dec edition, page 6). The previous year's Keynote speaker was Dr Norman Swann, media personality and host of ABC Radio National's 'The Health Report', who spoke on the topic 'Doctors in Media'.

MedEntry presents at Careers Expo

MedEntry's Dr Ed Boyapati was again invited to speak at the VCE Expo in Melbourne. At the Careers Forum he addressed students on the topic 'Working in medicine'. He also presented a very popular seminar on 'Medical Entry'. (Source: The Age VCE & Careers Expo, 7 April 2008, p30-31; 14 April 2007, p10-11; 14 April 2006, p12-13).

Med Students Pass Test

From Australian Doctor magazine, 28/5/04 p. 20

Medical professionals across Australia are doing their bit to help disadvantaged year 12 students prepare for the Undergraduate Medical and Health Sciences Admission Test (UMAT).

Under the name of the group MedEntry, they will offer a one day intensive workshop to high school students from disadvantaged areas who are generally under-represented in medical school. The group’s website is www.medentry.edu.au.

No Comparison

(Published in Australian Doctor 29 Feb 2008)

Your chief political correspondent, Paul Smith criticises the current medical school entry system on the grounds that it is invalid and inequitable.

However, an ‘admission lottery’ would make a mockery of the whole process because it is anti-meritorious. Who would want to see a doctor who was admitted to medical school based on luck? GAMSAT (the graduate entry test) is a test of irrelevant knowledge, so it is fair to question the validity of the test. In fact, the dean of the University of Sydney's medical school admits that GAMSAT is not a good tool for selecting potential doctors. However, UMAT (the year 12 entry test) is a test of generic skills and therefore a good predictor of success in any professional endeavour.

Psychometric tests such as UMAT are new in Australia, but in the US numerous such tests have been in use for decades. Coaching organisations are therefore well established. I was recently told by officials at the Educational Testing Service at Princeton (the equivalent of ACER) that they have no objection to the coaching because what is important is that students learn the skills that are tested, whether it is at school, university or at a coaching college.

Dr Ed Boyapati
MedEntry UMAT Prep
www.medentry.edu.au

Medical Training

(The Education Age, 21/11/2005, page 10)

Throughout the ages and in most countries medicine has been a profession with special privileges, hence demand to study medicine is high. In fact the demand to supply ratio is higher for medicine than for any other course in Australia, which is one reason for the use of criteria other than ENTER scores for entry (The medical Maze, Education Age, 7/11/2005).

Since medical knowledge is growing at an exponential rate, it is essential that future doctors have critical thinking, abstract reasoning, problem solving and interpersonal skills. Far from making the system sick, the selection process ensures that doctors are able, affable and adaptable.

It is to be expected that ACER would claim that the UMAT is a test that is not susceptible to coaching in an attempt to enhance its reliability and validity. However, in my 25 years of university teaching and research, I have yet to find a test that cannot be coached for. Coaching helps lift an individual’s performance in all competitions: sporting or intellectual.

Dr Ed Boyapati
MedEntry

To coach, or not...

From Australian Doctor magazine, 15/4/05 p. 31

Dr Kerri Parnell asks whether coaching for tests such as UMAT helps (‘Medical School Pick of the Crop may be Missing the Point’, Gut Feelings, 25 March).

If UMAT coaching is not useful, the logical conclusion is that coaching for selective/private school entry/scholarships tests is also not useful. Yet parents spend enormous amounts having their children coached for such tests.

Further, while the final high school exams admittedly test both knowledge and ability, the fact that people spend money on tutoring and send their children to ‘better’ schools is evidence that coaching helps improve performance.

Coaching certainly improves a person’s ability to some degree – or at least a person’s ability to do better in tests that purport to assess that ability – just as much as coaching helps even elite athletes and sporting stars perform better on that crucial day in competitions that aim to test their inherent ability.

In our information rich society, going to university purely to acquire knowledge is a waste of time and money, particularly since most people are expected to have several careers in their lifetime.

Universities, therefore, claim to develop a person’s ‘generic skills’ (a politically correct term for ‘ability’) and charge at least $50 000 for that privilege. If this is not the case, the very foundations on which the universities exist, crumble. Are the claims of universities correct or are we being conned? Answer this question and you have the answer to the question of whether coaching for UMAT/private/selective school entry helps. Finally, whether we have created a new form of inequity between the ‘coached’ and the ‘uncoached’ is analogous to asking whether there is inequity between the ‘educated’ and the ‘uneducated’. Both the coached (in sporting or intellectual ability) and the educated have been ‘value added’.

Authored by Dr Ed Boyapati, MedEntry

Changing Times

Published in 'Australian Doctor' (16 June, 2006, page 21).

Perhaps Dr Andrew Griffiths is not aware of the numerous changes in medical student selection that have taken place during the last ten years (Selection fails, 19 May). His criticisms about the inadequacies in the medical student selection are therefore not valid today.

These days, one does not need to get very high ENTER/UAI score to get into medical school, since almost all medical schools have now instituted three criteria for selection, only one of which is the ENTER score. The second is the results of an aptitude test called the UMAT (Undergraduate Medical and health sciences Admission Test). The third is the personal interview, which assesses the qualities Dr Griffiths considers important, such as the ability to develop rapport with patients, commitment, motivation and enthusiasm. The current selection system is therefore designed so that future doctors will be able, affable, available, affordable and adaptable.

In the current system, a student with an ENTER score as low as 90 has a good chance of being offered a place in medicine. In fact, due to the quotas imposed by the Federal Government, it is far easier for a student from a rural area to get into medical school than a student from a metropolitan area with similar performance in the three selection criteria.

Dr Ed Boyapati
www.MedEntry.edu.au

Not all entry tests equal

Published in Medical Observer (16 Feb 2007, p17)

The debate about whether school leaver entry or graduate entry is better for medicine will continue for a long time because there are winners and losers in either scenario (Inside Story, 24/11/2006; Letters, 8/12). The graduate entry pathway has the following disadvantages:

1. Many highly able students who would otherwise have become excellent doctors will be lost to other professions, because they may be reluctant to obtain another degree after graduation.

2. Graduate medical programs reduce the productive working life of a doctor.

3. The longer duration of study is likely to result in increased cost of services to patients on graduation and higher costs to tax payers to subsidise their study.

4. A significant proportion of school leavers are mature enough to make career choices. Forcing them to do a degree in which they have no interest in, and see it only as a means to an end, will result in frustration and disillusion.

While school leaver entry is better for everyone, a small proportion of medical places (say 10%) may be set aside for graduate entry. Graduate medical places can be an option for those who are uncertain about their career choice, unprepared for tertiary study or were unable to obtain a place after year 12.

However, there is a problem with the entry test for graduates. If practicing doctors in Australia were to sit the tests without preparation, at least 70% would pass the UMAT (test for school leavers), whereas only about 1% would pass the GAMSAT (test for graduates). This is not because GAMSAT is harder than UMAT: it is because while UMAT tests generic skills, GAMSAT tests knowledge, much of which is irrelevant to the practice of medicine.

By Dr Ed Boyapati
MedEntry

Valuable UMAT Prep

Published in Medical Observer, 22 June 2007.

Tuition for UMAT develops students’ skills in logical reasoning, critical thinking, problem solving, abstract reasoning and interpersonal skills. How can anyone claim that teaching such valuable life skills undermines UMAT? (MedObs, 8 June 2007, p13)

If UMAT coaching is considered unfair, then it must follow that the following must also be considered exploitative:

• Private schools charging parents up to $20,000 per year and profiting from their anxiety to get high year 12 scores for their children
• Universities profiting from students anxiety to obtain degrees (by charging $40,000 per year for a full fee place in medicine)
• Coaching organizations profiting from students anxiety to get into selective schools or obtain private school scholarships

Organizations profiting from people’s anxiety to get a job (by offering training in CV preparation, interview training etc).

UMAT coaching is no different to coaching for GAMSAT (entry test for graduate medicine). Equity and access issues are inevitable, whatever criteria is used. In fact, since GAMSAT and year 12 exams are knowledge-based tests, being coached for them is less useful than coaching for UMAT, which tests generic skills that students can take with them for life.

The Australian Medical Students Association’s own survey showed that 70% of medical students felt UMAT coaching helped. Our surveys consistently show that over 99% of students felt our UMAT tuition was useful.

MedEntry runs workshops in rural centres and offers substantial discounts for students who are financially or socially disadvantaged.

Dr Ed Boyapati

www.MedEntry.edu.au

Backing UMAT

(Published in Australian Doctor, 3 August 2007)

Some people raise questions about the current medical selection process, but offer no solutions. As in most countries, the demand for medical places in Australia will always far exceed the number available. Therefore, any selection system used will have winners and losers, and will be controversial.

Just because some GPs feel current entry procedures used may not have admitted them to medical school, it does not necessarily follow that the selection system is flawed. There are several reasons for this, one of them being that the advantages of medicine as a career compared to other professions has increased over the years. It is thus becoming more competitive to ‘get in’. Further, other professionals make similar claims, for example, getting into a law school at a good university is harder now.

Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is to be commended for developing UMAT, which is an objective test of generic skills to complement the knowledge examined in year 12/university. This, combined with interview performance, is the best system that educational research currently offers and similar processes are used around the world for the selection of medical students.

While testing knowledge may appeal to some, it is an intrinsically flawed means of selection since it is simply a test of effort, and knowledge is freely available these days. It is far better to test students’ generic skills, i.e. the ability to use the knowledge, as the UMAT does.

Dr Ed Boyapati
MedEntry

Selection Error

Selection Error (published in Australian Doctor 18 Jan 2008 and Medical Observer 25 Jan 2008)

Cogent arguments can be made both for and against interviews being part of selection process for entry to medical schools. However, Queensland medical school’s decision to scrap interviews because they do not predict success in the medical course is flawed.

The right question to be asked is whether interviews predict whether students make good doctors, not whether it predicts students’ success at medical school. The decision is analogous to selecting academics on the basis of their research potential and finding that they are not good teachers and hence scrapping the selection system.

Queensland medical school should go back all the way to selecting students after completing Year 12, rather than after completing a degree. A properly designed selection system geared for school leaver entry would be a better predictor of both their success in the medical program and during their career as a doctor.

Universities which have taken the graduate medical program route are finding that they are losing highly able and motivated students to the universities which offer undergraduate medical programs, thus losing high quality students and all the resulting benefits such as prestige.

Dr Ed Boyapati
MedEntry UMAT Prep
www.medentry.edu.au

University’s entry lottery is a mockery

University’s entry lottery is a mockery (Published in Medical Observer, 8 Feb 2008)

The Dean of Sydney Medical School, Professor Bruce Robinson, admits that the Graduate Australian Medical School Admission Test (GAMSAT) is not a good tool for selecting potential doctors and an ‘admission lottery’ is one option being considered. However, an ‘admission lottery’ would make a mockery of the whole process because it is illogical and anti-meritorious: why bother studying? Who would want to see a graduate of Sydney medical school who got in because of luck?

The real problem is that about 10 years ago under the misguided strategy of the then Dean Stephen Leeder, the University chose to change the entry system from school leaver entry to graduate entry. While the GAMSAT is test of (often irrelevant) knowledge, the test used for school leaver entry (UMAT) is a test of generic skills and hence a far better test.

A properly designed school leaver entry system such as that used by UNSW or Monash is far superior. They use a multi pronged approach with UMAT, Year 12 scores and interview performance being considered for the final ranking.

Dr Ed Boyapati
MedEntry UMAT Prep
www.medentry.edu.au