A 46 year old mature student has been given a place at one of the country's newest medical schools, at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich. Unusually, 57% of the first intake will be mature students; seven of the 110 students starting this autumn are over 40 and a further 22 are over 30. Only 33 are school leavers.
Admissions staff at UEA decided that they could not justify taking an applicant's age into account when considering offering them a place. Although medical schools are technically not allowed to set an upper age limit for successful applicants, it is widely acknowledged that preference would normally be given to younger students.
According to Professor Sam Leinster, dean of the new medical school, a person's contribution to medicine should not just be judged on the length of time they can contribute to the NHS as many older applicants can bring a great deal of life experience to medicine. Many of the older students have wanted to study medicine for years.
Commenting on the application figures Professor Leinster said: "We were surprised at the way the makeup turned out as we had expected to take more school leavers. However, the entire teaching staff waits with bated breath to see how the group will turn out. We think it will be a real challenge to teach this spread of students."
Applicants were initially considered on their A level or equivalent results, and the final selection was made by interview in the traditional way. The university decided to adopt an interview technique pioneered by the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. After a structured interview of 45 minutes each candidate was given a score based on five criteria, including their ability to deal with ambiguity when making decisions, capacity to thrive in the largely problem based learning curriculum, and evidence of personal effectiveness.
Michael Powell, executive secretary of the Council of Heads of Medical Schools, described the UEA admission figures as quite surprising. However, he added: "Mature students tend to be highly motivated, so it may well be that these older students turn out to be very good doctors."
The UEA medical school is one of two opening this year as part of the government's pledge to increase student numbers and widen access to medicine. The Peninsula Medical School, a joint initiative between the universities of Exeter and Plymouth, will open its doors to 130 students, 60% of whom are school leavers, 22% are graduates, and 20% are mature. Figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) show that of the 10 958 applicants to study medicine in 2002, just over 1000 applied to one or both of the new schools.
