Contact EURACT

E-mail

Phone
(32) 16 33 74 64

FAX
(32) 16 33 74 80

IRELAND

There is little change to report since our last meeting.

Basic Medical Education

There are four University medical schools and one independent medical school; all have undergraduate departments of General Practice. There are about 660 graduates per year about 330 of them are foreign graduates (mainly non-EU graduates).

Postgraduate specialist training

There are eleven independent GP training programmes with a total intake of 84 trainees. It is hoped to expand the intake to 150 over the next few years. This might need a radical revision of how training is organised! More about this in future years.

For the last ten years places on the training schemes are highly prized and training schemes have attracted the highest calibre of graduate. Following a national conference held to discuss the expansion of numbers in training and the length of training, many of the schemes are now extending training to four years. The additional year will be spent in the Community, i.e. in general practice. The official policy of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) is to extend training to five years; that is two years rotating through hospital specialist training posts and then three years in supervised training in General Practice. In the interim all schemes will go to four years by 2005.

Continuing Medical Education

There is an active network of local ICGP faculties each with one or more CME groups, which are supported by CME tutors. These CME tutors are remunerated by the ICGP for their work in supporting these groups. Quality assurance programmes are to be introduced by the Medical Council this year for each of the different craft groups within the profession.

Health Care

There is a mixed public health and private care system, which was grossly under-funded throughout the 1980's during a period of financial hardship. We then enjoyed a much-improved financial situation for seven years, however the medical infrastructure is still badly in need of a great deal of investment to increase the numbers of acute hospital beds and general facilities. General Practice is still the poor relation in the medical family and does not receive proper funding. Funding is now again tight and so developments are again on the long finger.

Personal notes

I am a general practitioner for the last 25 years and am director of the Dublin GP training programme. I am also a part-time lecturer in the Department of General Practice, Trinity College Dublin. My daughter Siobhan qualified this year in Medicine and has started her Intern Year – a future EURACT member?