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Students who include an engineer, music teacher, psychology graduate, physiotherapist, politics graduate and lawyer have become the first to emerge as doctors from the Faculty’s Graduate Entry Medical Program.

Despite having to juggle numerous commitments, not one of the original 19 intake in 2005 has failed and 15 graduated this month. More than half received Honours.

Some had children when they entered the four-year course, left behind lucrative careers, had to move interstate or live away from their families. Some started a family during the course.

According to Professor Sally Sandover, UWA Academic Co-ordinator  and former GEMP  Academic Co-ordinator, their degree of determination made them stand-outs.

“The single most important characteristic was not their background but their level of motivation,” she said. “These students had been wishing to get into medicine for a long time and many of them struggled with other life issues so they could complete their medical degree.

“A vast number had families, some were financially stretched because they were working prior to becoming students. . Most had to support themselves by working as well as studying. Some had parents who died during their course and so there were all these other life issues that were going on.”

The students, whose average age was 28 years, had excellent time management skills, co-ordinating multiple aspects of their life.

They undertook a bridging course in 2005 for 26 weeks before joining third year undergraduate students in 2006 to complete their degree.

“The bridging course was really intensive particularly because some students came from completely different backgrounds and had to learn a new language and way of doing things,” Professor Sandover said. “In the first cohort we had law, engineering, music, politics, science and physiotherapy backgrounds.”

Professor Sandover set up a very strong sense of cohort during the bridging course and an academic mentoring role that she took on.

Of the original 19 in the cohort, one student moved to the University of Queensland and will graduate from medicine this year. Three who deferred for health, family commitments or pregancies are all continuing their medical studies at UWA

All the graduates have intern placements, most at Fremantle Hospital or Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.

One of the first intake was a woman in her 40s with two children, married to a farmer in Esperance, who was a music graduate but wanted to become a doctor. She completed an online science course so she could sit the Graduate Australian Medical School Admissions Test (GAMSAT). She relocated her children and herself to Perth to do her medical degree and also joined the Rural Clinical School, which allowed her to spend a year in Esperance. And now she has graduated.