Chairman of the Medical Students Committee
Ms Jennie Ciechan
Tuesday 2 July 2002
Chairman, Representative Body, I was fortunate enough this year to follow in the footsteps of two very proficient and motivated Chairman - Dr. Nick Jenkins and, as of the 19th June, Dr. Kate Duffield. In many ways this year’s committee has reaped the benefits of their work for which we are very grateful.
It has been a phenomenally busy year but an extremely enjoyable one and I must thank the committee for working so hard and making it such a pleasurable experience.
As ever our work has centred on student finance, education and welfare. The funding arrangements for medical students in the UK remain extremely unsatisfactory and the marked differences between nations as to the financial help available causes ever-greater concern. The BMA’s survey of medical student finances demonstrated the deteriorating situation: Average debt has increased markedly with 21% of respondents having a total debt of over £15,000.
Amongst final year students – a final year which has not been affected by the introduction of tuition fees – this proportion rose to 40%. The burden of debt is having an increasing affect on our member’s emotional well-being both as a student and as a junior doctor and our efforts to improve the debt counselling advice available has doubled.
Unsurprisingly the increasing cost of medical education has affected the recruitment to medical school. This year 80% of medical students come from a professional background – not a middle class background - a professional background. The number of applications from students from less privileged backgrounds has dropped by 32%. Henry from Harrow – a regular feature at this ARM - is now stronger than ever whilst Barry from Brixton remains something of an exception.
Our years of work to improve the situation have been swept away in one foul swoop and the evidence does nothing to suggest a change is on its way. The review of student funding promised in January is yet to be released and the government remains determinedly oblivious to the difficulties faced by students. Admittedly there are still many more applications to medical school than places available but it is shameful that in the 21st century there is still such prevalent elitism in a University subject.
For many years we have called for entrance requirements and methods of assessment for medical school to be reviewed. We have asked for a method that selects those who show the most potential as doctors and not those who have had the fortunate to be given the best opportunities. We want to see an increase in applications from Afro-Caribbean school-leavers who currently represent less than 1% of medical students. We want to see students selected who are committed to medicine as a profession.
What saddens me most is that it has taken an issue of gender to bring the selection criteria into focus. The debate as to the balance of male and female students is an important one and I welcome it but there are more serious inequalities in medicine that must also be addressed. The debate should not be about who makes the better doctor or from whom you get the “best value” in terms of available years to the profession. But about making sure that every student is given equal access to study medicine. It should not be about discrimination but discovering the reasons behind current inbalances. We must ensure that no student, whether because of gender, race or financial status is disadvantaged by the present system.
The medical students committee has taken great strides forward in other areas. To our delight and after eight years of campaigning we have eventually persuaded the General Medical Council to revise its guidance as to the admission of students with disabilities and communicable diseases. We have enjoyed building closer working relationships with student organisations, the Joint Consultants Committee and the Council of Heads of Medical Schools and the benefits in our productivity are evident.
The MSC has rewritten its guidance on medical education and plan to publish the final document entitled “Medicine in the 21st Century” at the start of the next academic year. The Joint Healthcare student forum has enabled us to combine our efforts with other healthcare students and our service to our members in individual medical schools has benefited greatly from the expansion of intra-school medical committees. Finally the expansion in medical student places and medical schools is well underway if without any medical academics to actually teach the students.
The committee is delighted to be made a Craft committee for which we extend our thanks to you all. In order to optimise on this we have rearranged our structure to enable greater efficiency, productivity and continuity and we enter our first year with a considerable enthusiasm and optimism. Although the amount of work we would like to do far outweighs the amount we have the time and resources to accomplish we hope that this will be improved by an increase in Secretariat support now that we are a craft.