Other Medical schools are as good as Oxford

Editor - I read with interest the media coverage of the furore surrounding the Laura Spence "scandal." The summary in June's studentBMJ "class war" excellently showed the reporting angle to be biased towards the writer's standpoint. I personally believe Gordon Brown was wrong in his comments since Laura had the opportunity to study medicine at other medical schools. As one Observer commentator pointed out: "Isn't commitment to medicine a criteria for entry to medicine?"

I find it interesting that no one pointed out the fact that the other medical schools are equally as good. Don't a lot of Oxford students do their clinicals in London? It seems a shame in all the media hype that we have lost track of the fact that medicine is one of the few degrees which doesn't have only one centre of excellence-just many different ways of reaching a common objective. This ranges from the Oxbridge "historical academic" approach to the Manchester "trendy problem based learning" approach. I think medics should be emphasising the different ways you can learn medicine and therefore the different ways you can be selected for entry to medical school.

Damian Roland, fifth year medical student, Nottingham University NG7 2RD
Email: mzyg151@nottingham.ac.uk


studentBMJ 2000;08:259-302 August ISSN 0966-6494