Final-year medicine students may be forced to take crucial clinical assessments – worth up to 50 per cent of their marks for this year – a month early, amid fears that the spread of the coronavirus could make it impossible for them to sit the exams.
Final-year students were told this evening that their clinical exams, a crucial part of their degree, may begin in 11 days time – over a month before they were due to start.
Prof Joseph Hardiman, the director of undergraduate teaching and learning in the School of Medicine, wrote in an email statement to The University Times: “Nobody’s been moved anywhere yet but It’s likely we’re going to have to hold the clinical exams early and the most likely week is from 16th to 21st of March.”
However, he added, “this is dependent on us being able to organize an acceptable exam in that timescale”.
“The problem is that if the hospitals are working overtime to deal with sick people in April”, he said, adding that “we won’t be able to run an exam for practical and safety reasons, but we’re still going to need graduate doctors in July”.
“So we may need to modify our approach, get a clinical exam out of the way with the full understanding that the students may not be as prepared as they’d want, and hold their written exam later in April.”
“The situation is in flux at the moment and we are liaising with the hospitals and clinical staff and will be keeping the students informed.”
The move is likely to raise concerns among medicine students, given the importance of the assessments to their overall degree. The clinical assessments are worth 25 per cent of the grade that the students will leave College with.
The move comes as Trinity plans a raft of contingency plans to deal with the threat of the coronavirus. Last night, the HSE announced four more cases of the illness in the west of Ireland, bringing the total number in the Republic of Ireland to six.
The University Times reported last night that the fate of this year’s Trinity Ball could be up in the air, after the College left open the possibility that it could be shut down if the HSE advises it.
Trinity “will not be making any decisions regarding mass gatherings and closures”, and will follow the recommendations of the HSE’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre on any gatherings, Thomas Deane, a media relations officer in Trinity, wrote in an email statement to The University Times.
Deane also told The University Times that “Trinity is continuing to explore options for the online delivery of course content and assessments, as well as considering a range of other accommodations that may be put in place to ensure that our students are able to complete their studies for this academic year”.
Deane said that a working group set up in the College to monitor the situation, which previously met weekly, has begun meeting twice a week “as the situation evolves”.
Trinity is sharing information on posters around the College, and has set up a page on its website with the latest updates.
“The expert working group is actively devising contingency plans for a variety of scenarios in the college”, Deane wrote.
A student in Queen’s University Belfast was confirmed to have the coronavirus yesterday, bringing the total number of cases on the island of Ireland to nine.
Correction: 18:28, March 6th, 2020
An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Prof Joseph Harbison as Joseph Hardiman.
Susie Crawford also contributed reporting to this piece.
