OPINION:On Monday, professor Barry Taylor, dean of Otago Medical School, publicly stated that 53 students from University of Otago campuses in Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington did not attend their 12-week placements at locations overseas and their qualifications would be withheld.

Instead, the soon-to-be doctors were on an overseas jaunt courtesy of taxpayers. The 12-week elective term is funded by a Government stipend of $6689 paid as part of the $26,756 awarded to medical trainee interns in their final year.

Fifty-three students amounts to one-in five of Otago's final-year medical students.

If I were a gambling man, I would bet this rort has been going on for years and there are plenty of practising doctors hoping it all goes away. The public would be naive to believe this behaviour is restricted to just this year's cohort of final-year medical students.

READ MORE:* Placement scam medical students 'let off with a slap on the wrist'* Auckland medical students to face scrutiny after Otago students faked placements* Medical student overseas placement holiday rort 'widespread' - GP

Stuff

One in five final-year University of Otago medical students will not graduate this year after faking documents for their overseas work placements.

Taylor admitted that himself, when he saidt: "If it has been happening it's probably been ... building up over two or three years". That could possibly be the understatement of the year, depending on how much is unravelled in the weeks to come.

According to Stuff, one doctor who graduated from Otago said: "[In] my graduating year I know 100 students who spent one week or less on actual elective placements". In other words, it could also be feasible that this practice was a rite of passage and Otago turned a blind eye to it, or worse still, unofficially condoned it.

Now, the University of Auckland the only other university offering the six-year bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery qualifications has stated it is also conducting an investigation into its students.

I hope Otago and Auckland conducts thorough investigations of overseas work placements from previous yearsand perhaps decades. This lot were busted because some of them couldn't resist posting photographs of their overseas jaunts on social media.

Ten or 20 years ago, no-one was uploading images online of themselves tiptoeing on the beach with a duckface, so the chances of doctors getting caught back then were slim in comparison to now, with the "look-at-me"era.

Also, why are taxpayers funding overseas "training"in the first place? Students can choose to do their placement in New Zealand or overseas some elect to do it overseas and we pick up the tab for it. If they want to "train"overseas, let them do it at their own expense.

We are short of doctors on the ground here, so unless they need to learn how to deal with non-routine injuries or illnesses they perhaps wouldn't be exposed to here, their training should be in New Zealand hospitals and medical centres.

After all, we the taxpayers fund three-quarters of the cost of their six-year medical training.

We also pick up ongoing costs when they graduate too. For example, back in 2013, Stuff reported that "on-duty resident doctors have not paid for a meal since 1948" and were clocking up "$9 million of taxpayer-funded free lunches a year". How dare we feed the hungry kids at schools the doctors must be fed first.

Further, being a doctor remains one of the highest-paid professions in the country, with senior doctors earning an average annual salary of about $200,000.

Yet, despite their forecast large salaries and free lunches, this bunch of privileged student doctors has lied about their taxpayer-funded overseas work placementand has been let off with a slap on the wrist.

I suppose a slap on the wrist was appropriate, especially since Taylor said those affected were "heartbroken". Taylor went on to say: "The students have been quite seriously affected by the investigation.The majority have seen themselves as really honest people doing medicine for the sake of other people".

Oh, diddums.

Honest people don't commit fraud. Yes, they committed fraud.

As we all know, the Government will not hesitate to prosecute beneficiaries for fraud relating to as little as $1000. However, if you come from the right background and are at medical school, the chances of being prosecuted for fraud are zero.

Let's prove me wrong, then. Taylor, please attend your nearest police station and make a formal complaint, naming the 53 students and how each misspent taxpayers' dollars earmarked for trainingto go on holiday.

Otago University has an ethical responsibility to the public of New Zealand to report this matter to the police. I wait with bated breath.

Steve Elers is a senior lecturer at Massey University, who writes a weekly column for Stuff on social and cultural issues

See the article here:
Medical school rort is fraud and students misusing taxpayer money should be reported to the police - Stuff.co.nz