Editor - Two years of stress and exams has taught me very little of any use when confronted with real patients and the demands of their consultants. This makes me wonder why preclinical education exists at all.

Is it really just a glorified exercise in endurance; a series of hurdles designed to weed out the less hardy specimens? There is no doubt that our time spent in the confines of the medical school gave us a basic founding in our science but with exam questions like, "Earwax is a natural insect repellent, true or false?" I can't help but wonder if my time might not have been better employed elsewhere. having watched many wonderfully understanding, intelligent, and more than capable students flounder in the final stages and find themselves asked to leave, it is perhaps an astonishingly poor form of selection.

perhaps there is an alternative. Would three years spent obtaining an "ordinary degree," and a healthy dollop of life prove better preparation for life as a medic, and be a superior indicator of suitability than surviving preclinical boot camp? A good degree in a relevant subject would distinguish those capable of thriving in an environment of self motivated learning, as opposed to the hothouse of spoon­fed A levels. Surely our graduates are more highly qualified to take a reasoned decision as to whether medicine really is for them than our teenage population, and are better equipped to cope with the consequences of that decision.

hear! hear! for graduate medical courses such as that introduced by the new Leicester Warwick Medical School. Leicester Warwick is now offering a new four year MB CHB curriculum for graduates of Biological Sciences. Others are beginning to offer similar courses. I look forward to seeing the results.