Conference agrees on wider range of candidates for medical school

UK medical students who leave the course early should be allowed an "honourable exit" by being awarded a "half way degree." This was one of the many recommendations made by the British Medical Association's board of medical education after a conference on selection for medical school.

The recently published report from the conference suggests that a half way degree would be given to students who have completed part of the course but feel that medicine is not for them. The only system currently available is to complete two years of a preclinical medical course and study for a one year BSc degree.

The main focus of the conference was aimed at widening the range of applications from different social classes to medical school as well as attracting more graduate students. Professor Lesley Southgate, a speaker at the conference from University College Medical School, London said: "The 'door' to medicine must be left open for longer, so we can see who comes in. This would help ensure that access is as wide as possible."

Both St George's medical school in London and Leicester University medical school outlined proposals at the conference for accelerated graduate courses. These would run for four years and be aimed at graduates with a relevant science degree. The courses are similar to those in Australia and the United States, where medicine is studied as a postgraduate degree.

The use of interviews in selection processes has been debated by British medical schools for a long time. Professor Southgate argued that the entire system needed changing if medical schools wanted to attract a wider range of applications. One problem is that forms from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) for medical courses have to be submitted two months earlier than for other subjects. This may work against students from schools that do not usually have applicants to medical school.

In September 2000, Nottingham University will become the first medical school in the United Kingdom to introduce an explicit psychological assessment of prospective students. All academically suitable candidates will be tested and ranked on factors such as personality and "personal characteristics." The school hopes that the use of such a test will allow would be doctors from less academic backgrounds to compete fairly with the more traditional applicants that are seen today.

Not everyone agrees, however, that the system needs to be changed. Professor Chris McManus, a psychologist at Royal Free and UCL medical school, believes that changing the interview system to involve non-academic testing would be too hard: "It is so difficult to identify a stable range of behavioural factors in medical school applicants that we may be better to maintain the present approach."

The drive to attract a wider range of applicants to medical school has been a key factor in the British government's commitment to creating an extra 1000 places for medical students within the next five years. The extra places mean that new medical schools must be created as well as existing courses changed, which should allow all medical schools to consider the points raised at the conference.

Muhunthan Thillai, London


studentBMJ 2000;08:45-88 March ISSN 0966-6494