New fast track medical courses to start in UK

Jenny Blythe Dundee

Four medical schools in the UK--Cambridge, Oxford, St George's London, and Leicester Warwick, are to begin a new four year fast track course for graduates this autumn. The courses at Cambridge, Oxford, and Leicester Warwick are for graduates with biochemical degrees, while the St George's course is open to all graduates.

The new courses are part of the government's plan to increase medical student numbers. Several new schools have already been announced; the first of these will open in East Anglia and the south west in the autumn of 2002. Existing schools have also gone into partnership with other colleges and universities in their areas to increase the numbers of doctors in training. There are also new schemes at some schools to encourage students from a wider social mix and less privileged backgrounds into studying medicine.

Kate Duffield, chairperson of the BMA medical students committee, has described the graduate entry schemes as a "particularly welcome" way of increasing medical student numbers. It is hoped that not only will graduates bring their knowledge from their former degree to the fast track courses, but the financial burden on them will be reduced by the course being only four years instead of five.

Neema Jaberi, an anatomical sciences graduate who is starting at Leicester Warwick this autumn, said: "I'm very excited about it. It's a brand new course at a brand new medical school. I'm really looking forward to it."



studentBMJ 2001;09:305-356 September ISSN 0966-6494