The Faculty of Medical Sciences of the National University of La Plata (UNLP), which appears scored in a recognized international ranking of university degrees, dropped positions this year in relation to the classification it obtained in 2022.
According to the platform topuniversities.com, the La Plata faculty occupied the 400-451 segment of the ranking last year. While in 2023 it went on to occupy block 451-500, thus resuming the place it occupied between 2018 and 2021.
According to what was reported by the platform, the classification criteria for the Medicine degree encompass five factors: academic reputation, reputation as an employer, citations per article, H index citations, and international research network.
The ranking for the Medicine career is led by Harvard, Oxford and Stanford.
The first in Latin America is the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC) in position 96, followed by the National University of Mexico (UNAM) in step 126 and the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) in step 141.
During the last few days, Medicine was once once more the epicenter of the controversy over the decision to retouch the study plan, by going from optional to compulsory the Intensive Care subject, which appears in the fifth year (then you have to do the practice mandatory ending).
Initially, in the academic community, surprise reactions were added to the decision to apply the change, starting this year. For some students, it was an irregularity that the change began to take effect for those who are already with the degree in progress.
Professor Arnado Dubin, a leading specialist, head of the chair and promoter of change, also said he was surprised. He told this newspaper that he was notified a little over two weeks ago that the new scheme would be in place. So, he had to rush appointments of teachers to face the commissions, new classrooms and venues inside and outside the academic headquarters of 60 and 120.
All in all, he was satisfied with the change, which goes in the direction of deepening training in an area that acquired special consideration in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. From various points in the medical world, there is a warning regarding the shortage of professional therapists.
The Faculty’s decision, which had been voted on by the board of directors in December, was finally postponed. According to versions in the academic community, it was the reaction among the student body that pushed the authorities of the deanery to back down.
This picture, in the midst of returning to face-to-face classes, was added to the complaints from that same faculty due to the extension of the activities in virtual form (three years) and the evaluation criteria for that pedagogical scheme.
protests
Specifically, last year there was an atmosphere of protest due to the repeated bochazos in various subjects, throughout the different sections of the career.
Then, while discussing the difficulties of the student body to meet the university requirement, the faculty responded with criticism of the dean’s office and the chairs for technical failures in the class portal.
Also for the inclusion of topics in the tests that had not been developed correctly in the ones taken.
The Faculty lives in these years the echoes of a radical change in the training strategy: in 2015 at the request of a national law, the qualifying admission course was withdrawn.
In this way, it went from around 400 annual entrants to figures that are close to 8 thousand, according to the last registration record. In the same way, the Faculty multiplied its total enrollment until reaching a third of the total number of the UNLP (a total of 17 faculties).