Student perspective of the BMA's annual meeting

Ian Urmston BMA

At its annual meeting in Bournemouth last month, the BMA gave a strong message that it expected the Labour government to deliver on its promises for the NHS during its second term.

The chairman of the BMA council, Dr Ian Bogle, warned the prime minister that time was "running out" if the NHS was to be improved. Manpower and recruitment, workload pressure and funding, all had to be addressed within the next 12 months if the government was to realise its ambitions before the next election. To add to the bleak picture of falling doctor morale caused by a shortage of doctors and a lack of time to provide quality care, Dr Bogle referred to the drop in medical school applications.

This theme was picked up by Kate Duffield, chairperson of the BMA's medical students committee (MSC). Could it be, she asked, that a combination of increased medical student debt and the running down of the profession by some politicians and journalists had led to "talented and able school leavers" no longer considering medicine as a career option? The decline in applications was more obvious among students from less affluent backgrounds. The MSC asked the meeting to support proposals for tuition fees to be abolished and a UK graduate endowment scheme introduced to ease the burden of medical student debt. The meeting agreed and the MSC will lobby ministers on this recommendation.

BMA representatives also supported the view that medical students should be afforded the same rights as qualified colleagues to continue their career if they contracted a communicable disease. Doctors who contract HIV or hepatitis B are not automatically barred from continuing their career in medicine, but sensible constraints on their practice to reduce the risk of doctor to patient transmission are introduced. The argument that it was discriminatory to prevent students with a communicable disease from starting a medical degree or expelling a student who contracted such a disease was successfully argued by Peter Taysum from Newcastle University. He said that courses should be modified and affected students allowed to continue to graduation and a suitable post-qualification career. The BMA will now consider whether a legal challenge under human rights legislation could be made in an appropriate case.

The meeting welcomed the expansion of undergraduate places at medical schools and the introduction of new schools and fast track courses. This enthusiasm was tempered, however, when considered against a shortage of medical academic staff and the problem of student debt.

It was also agreed that the MSC should become a craft committee of the association with equal standing to other crafts, such as GPs and junior hospital doctors. The committee would continue to function in the same way, negotiating with the government and other organisations.



studentBMJ 2001;09:261-304 August ISSN 0966-6494