To think my dad has a point about the shortage of doctors?

[malificent7]

My sister did medicine. There were so few places but as she got AAA , ahe was admitted. Apparently when she got to uni she was told that her cohort were the elite. They are academically the elite and i am so proud of my sister.
However, my dad reckons there are so few places at medical school as they want to keep it an elite profession. Yes....it is for academically able students but perhaps more backgrounds should be considered?

Medicine is an extremely challenging field of study. Not everyone is capable of this. Nothing to do with wanting to ‘keep it elite’.

More universities are accepting alternative routes now OP - I finished Nursing with a 2:1 degree. It got me into direct entry medicine at St George's London

I am now an F1 :)

I thought there were so few places as there are only so many medical students that hospitals can manage/mentor at a time

I thought it was because it's cheaper to poach doctors from poorer countries than train our own.

My sister is a doctor and she agrees, she thinks there should be completely different routes in an that the A star students are often not the best suited.

The number of university places for medicine are dictated by government taking account of the cost and the capacity of teaching hospitals to train students.

Medicine is a very selective subject. You need the highest grades but you also need to be well rounded outside of academics.

What benefit is there to the government if doctors were only the ‘elite’?

I know a lot of people who went down the medic route, for the most part they were from lower middle class backgrounds but far from elite.

GEM needs better funding. People who have a related degree (Science, Nursing etc) shouldn’t have to fund it themselves.

I would like to see the figures for Scottish Home medical students. The problem with free education is lots of places are filled with fee-paying students.

I’m a doctor, so is husband. I think you’d struggle to find any working medic who wouldn’t support the training of lots more doctors from any background, race or creed. We’re on our knees both in hospitals and primary care. It definitely doesn’t feel elite!

That said, the premedical years at medical school are academically brutal- I was an ‘easy’ A student all the way through school (not privately educated) and the first year was a culture shock- major step up from A levels.
it would be unfair to offer places to students who hadn’t demonstrated they could survive and thrive (be that through the conventional A-Level route or other postgraduate route).

I tutor post graduate medical students (ie students entering an accelerated medical school course which condenses the first 2 years into a year) at one of the UKs most overapplied universities; these students come via a fabulous colourful array of entry routes- they make superb doctors and often out perform the convention direct entry A level cohort... although my University might be considered ‘elitest’ by reputation, the students I tutor don’t support this theory.

Medical school numbers are funded and dictated by non doctors at gvt level- way way above most clinicians pay grade!

When did they last revise the numbers permitted to train as doctors?

Sorry this is so out dated - there are so many new routes into medicine it is not all about grades. In my year we had nurses, policemen, dieticians, personal trainers, ex soldiers, bankers, teachers, midwives , lawyers, actors, various second degree students- the geriatrics as we called them came from all walks of life and all social classes, as did th 18/19yr olds fresh from school and a gap year, 40% were to use a term i hate BAME - people of indian, pakistani, nigerian, jamaican, zimbabwean, chines, malay, burmese, jewish, lebanese, iranian etc descent

Hot all had straight ~As and there was not doubt that some had to work harder than others. There does need to be an element of academic ability as the volume of information to process is large.

I entered medical school in 1988

Just out of interest...i am an Alleid health professional and would be very interested in training to be a doctor.I got a 1st for my degree so I am sure I could handle the academic side...chemistry might be a challenge though.

Apparently in 2020 there were 8750 graduates in the UK. Scotland had 845 which is what you’d expect as we have just under % of the UK population. But, the Scottish government has bumped up places to 1030 and increased places for nursing students.

Argh, should read just under 9% of the population. 😂

MedSchools are penalised if they take too many students.
MedSchools have asked govt to expand & refused permission.

MSs can't afford to pay for excess students & govt won't pay for their last 2 years tuition.
Nothing to do with eliteness or protecting privilege.

There has been a massive expansive in the number of medical students trained.

Your Dad should look at how many of them actually stay both in medicine and in the UK after qualification - there has been a mass exodus from the profession from people either giving up, or going to Aus/NZ.

The job is crap now, not well paid and junior docs are leaving in droves.

If there aren't enough doctors you can't just train more as there's actually less availability of people to train the students as most of the training is done by active clinicians. Classic catch 22. There also has to be funding for enough training posts for all of the students coming through med school - I seem to remember a few years ago there were not enough F1 jobs so a load of med students went abroad and never came back ...

Joined up thinking needs to happen, sadly it's not a government forte!

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/15/791-medical-graduates-could-miss-out-on-nhs-junior-doctor-training

Not sure how this stacks up against the discussion but seems to suggest that we have an abundance of students but not enough places.

A friend of mine has recently finished a degree, having been a nurse. This is a relatively new initiative so there are other routes nowadays.

The government decides how many places there are in the medical schools in the UK. They determine the supply of British trained doctors

The number of medicine places are limited because there aren't enough placements places to cope with more. They are "elite" in that thousands apply for few places and those that get those offers have out forward excellent applications for those places. There are unfortunately many with as good applications who don't get places.

Your Dad is having a proud dad moment but I hope he is as proud of you with your 1st. It would be a shame if he isn't

How do they manage training abroad. I think germany has twice as many doctors per head as us. Do they justvmanage to kerp who they train, or train more.

The model of training is, in my view, a huge problem.
I think all medical training (and other essential fields) should be free with a requirement to work within the state sector for 10 years (or less). Drs who wish to go private can buy out of this, most will stay and we will have a well staff and energetic young NHS full of well trained Drs and Nurses from all backgrounds and communities. Dr do need high grades but not nearly as competitive as finance which now attracts a lot of the best candidates from the poorest backgrounds.

i have nothing to contribute but this is a really interesting thread. I know many many medics amongst my friends and family, without exception they are very very academic but personable, wonderful people who all aspired to the profession from a young age.

The system is based on train some at home and import others fully qualified from abroad (India, Nigeria etc - basically asset stripping in my opinion). Nursing and care is the same.
Have you seen ‘This is Going to Hurt’? The universities only do part of the job, the latter stages of the training is done by already overworked doctors.