Siân Knight profiles Nick Jenkins, the newly elected chair of the BMA's Medical Students Committee

Do you remember freshers' fair at medical school? A cacophony of noise, with stereos pumping out and a constant babble of eager voices. Stalls are set out, with clubs, societies, and commercial companies handing out free gifts in the hope of persuading you to become a member, part with your money, sign up for life. You talk to the people at the Student's Union, the Medical Defence Union, and the scattering of banks and businesses, besieged by facts and figures, free pens, and carrier bags. Not once, throughout the entire fun fair like experience, will you hear the words BMA Medical Students Committee. Which, considering these are the people who represent you to the government, take your part at the BMA, and basically participate in all the main issues connected with medical education, is all slightly strange.

 

Nick Jenkins Chairman of the BMA's MSC

Lack of communication

The MSC of the BMA was set up 1982 after a need for a formal voice for medical students was recognised by the BMA. Past chairpeople of the MSC have gone on to get very involved in the medicopolitics of the association. Nick Jenkins, elected in October this year, is the committee's current chair. It is his job to ensure that your views are heard by the people who matter. Since many of the 12 000 student members of the BMA do not have any idea about the existence of the MSC, some would view his position as a difficult one. "A lot of the work we do involves promoting the BMA to students. What we don't do, historically, is promote the MSC to students. Perhaps we should do." Nick leans back his chair, in the leafy conservatory where we are dining, and flashes an apologetic smile. He seems fully aware of how "cloak and dagger" the current operation of the MSC is, and of the widespread criticism of its lack of communication with medical students - the group the committee should be representing. He also seems particularly adept at telling you exactly what you want to hear. His diplomatic manner, hearty chuckle, and personable attitude are reminiscent of a politician and should ensure that he will follow past MSC chairs into the medicopolitical bowels of the BMA.

The question of how the MSC can represent a group of students who, for the most part, don't know they exist, hangs in the air throughout the interview. "One of the things the MSC has been terribly guilty of in the past is coming down to London from all over the country, to contemplate our navels on all things political," Nick tells me. "I'm the first person to admit we don't communicate well with people in the schools. I'm happy to admit we don't know all the answers about how to improve it. It's time to say okay, we've done some very good politics within the BMA, but perhaps we ought to give it a rest. Let's concentrate on the bit we do badly - telling the students what we're about. When the BMA set us up, we had to make a good impression - there's a lot of short term gain in doing that. Now we've made an impression on the whole of the BMA, and you could make an impression in stone more quickly than you could make an impression on some senior members. One thing no one seems to have concentrated on is how we get across to the students. If there's one thing I'd like to see change, it's that."

The 30 members of the MSC are medical students - one student per medical school - and are independently elected by student members of the BMA every year, via a form which is sent out with the MSC annual report. If, as many medical students do, you automatically throw out all self promotion from the BMA, you may not be aware of the MSC's existence, let alone of how you can either stand or vote.

Another criticism of the MSC is the extremely long time it takes for anything to get done. This may be partly explained by the infrequent committee meetings. There are three MSC meetings annually, and an executive subcommittee composed of 12 MSC representatives meets an additional three times a year. "It's a criticism of the BMA," Nick tells me. "Not solely a criticism that can be levelled at the MSC. None of us are full time, and we're trying to do it all on top of everything else. If we decide to write a letter to someone at the GMC during a meeting, it takes two weeks for our secretariat to get round to writing it and then sending it. But the guy at the GMC only works there one day a week, so he sees it in two or three weeks' time. Then he replies and it comes back to us, but it's missed our executive meeting and has to wait until the next MSC meeting. The whole thing does grind very slowly; for a lot of people that's frustrating." Lethargy and apathy

For a body of students who have the ear of the government - even if Nick cannot tell me the name of the health minister after the reshuffle - the MSC seems surprising lethargic, even apathetic. "Apathy is something that we have to campaign against a lot," admits Nick. "We take our lead from the rest of the BMA and save our stirring for the emergency. The juniors are now stirring like mad; they have their emergency, and it's been 10 years since they last stirred. The apathy out there is one of the challenges that a cynic might think was a big problem in medicine as a whole, but the junior doctors have just shown you can fire up amazing people in apparently apathetic people if the cause is right."

Yet the MSC has made no move to fire up such feeling. Even the issue of tuition fees, which so many medical students felt strongly about, produced no outward show of defiance from the MSC. "There's an argument about whether tuition fees and student loans were a good cause." Nick frowns, and gazes steadily into the distance. "The decision which was made then was that there is no point generating such a well of feeling about something that isn't going to change." So the MSC's result of the fight against tuition fees was a series of letters to Baroness Blackstone, and not placard waving outside the House of Commons. "We got some concessions, but tuition fees were probably the most unsuccessful thing we've done so far.."

Nick Jenkins aims to inform student during his time at the BMA - whether he manages to fulfil that agenda will be seen over the coming 12 months. Leaving the restaurant, I would far rather have been told that yes, the MSC was fighting to ensure all medical students could receive the full student loan in their final year, or that yes, the committee was discussing with the government the possibilities of introducing more humanities into the course - this instead of being told about the increased number of voting seats at the ARM that they have achieved this year. Whether the committee members have increased presence within the BMA, they still have no presence outside it - at least I left with the impression that whatever the MSC would be doing this year I, along with the rest of you, would be told about it.