Puzzling politics of preferential treatment

University of Otago medical school is not the same for everyone after all.

Let me explain. Take two similar students who both live in Coatesville and attended the same private school and have the same UMAT (Undergraduate Medical Admissions Test) score.

One of them, Annie, who moved to Coatesville as a high school student, will need an average of 93 per cent to get into med school (based on 2017 figures) The other student, who also lives in Coatesville and went to the same high school, would get in with 88 per cent because that student went to Coatesville Primary School, enabling them to apply under the “rural origins” sub category.

There are 55 places reserved specially for these so-called “rural” students. Rural is defined by the Department of Statistics.

The rural advantage is even greater if these two students apply on the other path, after finishing an undergraduate degree. The general applicant needs an A average; rural will get in with a B plus. I know, right? Coatesville! Coatesville is an affluent area on Auckland’s northern outskirts known as the Hamptons of Auckland. It is full of large faux Tuscan houses built by Herne Bay stockbrokers who wanted a ride-on mower. If you live in Coatesville you are five minutes from one of New Zealand’s biggest shopping malls. Yes, it’s that rural.

Last month this paper reported Coatesville was Auckland’s top priced suburb with an average sale price of $3.3 million.

Forgive me, but I find it hard to see how the pony club graduates of Coatesville are worthy recipients of a scheme which is intended to encourage more doctors into needy rural practices.

But maybe I’m missing the point. Perhaps this scheme works because those who get in under the ruralorigins sub-category have to commit to being altruistic Doctors Without Borders types, taking their skills to the country’s remote, deprived areas?

Nope and nope. Turns out the students in the rural origins subcategory are not bonded after graduation and are free to work wherever they like. They “may be” required to participate in a placement in a rural practice in their fifth year, but even this is not compulsory.

So I went to Peter Crampton, the University of Otago pro-vice chancellor and dean of health sciences and asked him about it. (Again, sorry Annie). Professor Crampton said six years ago the university introduced a policy called Mirror on Society to reflect the diverse communities of Aotearoa.

“Don’t underestimate the politics of rural. The economy is dependent upon agriculture, tourism and fishing, much of which is based in rural communities. The maintenance [or not] of infrastructure in rural communities is a political issue.”

He said the scheme has been a success, based on a 2014 paper in the New Zealand Medical Journal which he claimed found almost twice as many Otago students with rural background or training choose to work in non-major urban and rural locations.

But when I read the study it did not seem to support this conclusion. The study was based on a tiny sample (14 doctors) and the authors concluded the number of doctors with rural origins working in nonurban areas was not statistically significant.

I know the university has the purest motives for trying to encourage diversity and to support our rural heartland. I’m just not sure that preferential treatment for someone who grew up in the Dotcom mansion is the way to do it. It is stupid and unfair.