Medical schools are not elitist, at least not in the way they are portrayed
Editor - Your editorial1 was flawed in several fundamental respects and disappointingly echoed the speech made earlier in the month by the education secretary.2 The implications of the research quoted in June's studentBMJ were that Guy's and St Thomas's (now Guy's, King's, and St Thomas's), the Royal Free (now Royal Free University College Medical School), and St George's medical schools favoured public and private school applicants. Two of the medical schools in question have undergone radical changes in the period between the data being collected and being published. Are these medical schools especially bad? Or are they simply the only schools that have been studied?
The authors must surely understand, when they talk of medical
schools being unrepresentative, that the data were collected at a time
when bright young comprehensive pupils were being awarded assisted
places. Scholarships, such as for sport or music, were a charitable
alternative. This allowed such bright pupils to avoid the terrible
variation that exists in state education, which is the real issue that
the government refuses to address, since assisted places have been
phased out.3,4 The aforementioned medical
schools were also under pressure to accept ethnically representative
proportions of medical students, most of whom come through the private
sector. The government has aggravated the situation by restricting
opportunities yet further with the removal of grants and introduction
of inadequate loans. Having said this, many families make tremendous
sacrifices to put their children through private schooling so that they
can have a chance at academic success. To positively discriminate
towards the massively underprivileged in the manner that your editorial
and David Blunkett seem to advocate is to discriminate against the vast
majority of industrious pupils and parents who prioritise education
over holidays and video games. This, and the proposed means tested
university places, would make university an option only for the
overprivileged and the destitute. To reserve 50% of places for state
school applicants is "champagne socialism" at its worst.
Having said that, it has been common knowledge for some months now that
Guy's, King's, and St Thomas's has launched a scheme to tutor and
sponsor up to 50 local comprehensive pupils who would otherwise only
dream of medical studies. Both the studentBMJ editor
(himself a Guy's, King's, and St Thomas's man) and David Blunkett
seem to have overlooked this.5
The other issue that has arisen is the myth that a regional accent
jeopardises an application to study medicine. The huge Welsh contingent
at the "so elitist" Guy's, King's, and St Thomas's may well
disagree. However, the authors of the paper should, when they talk of
doctors being able to understand patients, also realise that it is
equally important for doctors to be able to understand each other. In
centuries past, doctors spoke and prescribed in Latin. English has
replaced Latin as the dominant medical language. The only way to avoid
discrimination against atrocious accents in medicine completely would
be to force people into medical school and then into practice in their
particular region of speech. This has been implemented by Guy's,
King's, and St Thomas's to an extent, it seems.
The "stupid toffs" slogan is out of date.6
Interviewers should be concerned with identifying good potential
doctors,7 not filling quotas. The kind of
representativeness for which David Blunkett and the
studentBMJ appear to be aiming belongs in parliament and
not in the medical profession.
Andrew Papanikitas, third year medical student, Guy's, King's, and St Thomas's, London WC2R 2LS
Email: anp@easynet.co.uk
studentBMJ 2000;08:259-302 August ISSN 0966-6494
- O'Neale Roach J, Dorling D. Recruiting the wrong students. studentBMJ 2000;8:178-9.
- Charter D. Universities accused of class prejudice. The Times 11 May 2000.
- Class warriors. The Economist 3 June 2000:15.
- Megaphone politics. The Economist 3 June 2000:41.
- Whitchurch C. Widening access to medicine. Guys, Kings, and St Thomas's MedNews 2000;5:12-3. (January.)
- Back to class war. The Economist 3 June 2000:27-8.
- Thillai M. Editorial. Trauma (the magazine for London medical students) 2000;3. (June.)
