Resident doctors synicsl strike again

[uneffingbelievable]

The resident doctors have once again announced a 6 day strike to co incide with a bank holiday weekend.

Whilst I support fair pay and working conditions I have lost all sympathy with them. This is not poverty when you are being paid as a whole package 40-95000 gross on a 44 hr week depending on your seniority.

The arguments about lack of jobs did not stack up with more jobs going to home graduates than IMGS despite the hysteria and a huge number of home graduates not even bothering to apply.

They are coming across as tone deaf and entitled or am I missing something.

A minimum requirement of AAB doesn't mean that's the majority of students, or the average student, it means it's the minimum. And foundation years (to my knowledge) are only available to contextual students, to help level the playing field where a young person is living with disadvantage or is a young carer. Again, not the average student.

I don't think the strike is because someone has come along and told them 'hey, did you know you can earn more money elsewhere easier, you are worth more.' I think that's quite insulting, they know that they can earn more elsewhere, but still they choose to study medicine.

I think one of the catalysts is the whole PA situation. When the F1/2 doctors see on placement PA and PA students being prioritised for training opportunities 'because they'll still be here in six months but you will have moved on', and talking about their salary and work life balance and how it makes them glad they didn't get into med school, that doesn't help. I know you're going to say that you've never seen or heard either of those things, but it does happen and it does feed into the discontent. Another factor is the random number generator for F1 jobs encouraging mediocrity rather than having a system that encourages students to strive for excellence. And the whole debacle over training numbers post F2. Lots of very loose phrasing in the current documentation like 'significant nhs experience' with no clear definition, which leave it open to interpretation and abuse.

It's not. It's designed for ALL good mathematicians to reach a set skill which can be reached by about 60% of grade 7 GCSE students. FM was introduced to give deeper understanding to prepare for more mathematical courses eg. Maths, physics, engineering. JCQ do a lot of research before changing curriculums and setting standards.

Working for exam boards is quite common for teachers as it's great CPD.

Ditto. DD can't get home for about another 5 weeks as rota is brutal on this rotation. Easter eggs will have to wait. Or I might pop down and surprise her next week !

The lack of understanding around gateway courses is sad. They are only available to a very few students, for very good reasons. Other degrees do them too (including the beloved law). Even Oxbridge offer them now.

The lack of understanding about the different circumstances students have which allows them to learn is staggering. Fortunately Unis get it. If you live in a 2 bed flat on the 13th floor of a council tower block with a family of 7, have to work to earn while at school or not eat, heating is never on as too expensive, and classes are 30+ for A level, it is obviously more impressive to get an A than for the 2.4 family, warm and well fed student, with parents who can support and classes of -10. How can anyone not get this ???

Most of what doctors do will be done by AI in a few years anyway.

Degree outcomes depend on prior attainment for students with POLAR4 and IMD markers of deprivation - just as they do for students from other socioeconomic groups. Therefore, Oxford and Cambridge don't deviate from their standard offer when they consider contextual data.

Or Physicians Associates ... a whole other can of worms.

Every good Maths degree programme in the UK requires Maths A level of those in the A level system. Therefore, one of the purposes of Maths A level us to assess suitability for Maths degree programmes.

Nowhere have I claimed that this is the exclusive purpose. Indeed, all students in our School have A star in Maths and most have A or A star in FM also, although FM is not required.

However, the top 10 Schools of Math in the CUG and only two others (Loughborough rsnked 19 and KCL ranked 38) actually require FM. Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester recommend it. A few others will make a lower offer to those who have it. Not many.

The majority of Schools of Mathematics in the UK do not make formal use of FM in their assessment process.

Well do I remember the tiresome consultation process ahead of the exam revisions, thanks very much. But from our perspective, the new ones are better.

I am still not sure why you think your experience of CPD trumps the experience of a STEM admissions tutor married to a maths professor on this.

@mumsneedwine the second paragraph if your quote above only makes sense if you admit that assessing applicants for university maths courses is one of the uses if Maths A level, based on my previous post.

My STEM subject is maths intensive so I do teach quite a lot of it, thanks. Not at high school level, however.

I dislike having my words twisted, in common with others on this thread. It isn’t about any particular topic.

@mumsneedwine Classes of 30 plus for A level! Choose a MFL then! Very few able students live as you describe. Few medical student families. Work for food, study and do all that prep you say is necessary for med school? Only in rare circumstances I think.

Hmmm I am not sure about this. We live in a deprived area although we are actually in the top 10% of earners and DS went to a selective school. All his offers were contextual including Oxford....

And bless you. How patronising that poorer students aren't 'able'. So so out of touch it's incredible. Never heard of Brampton Academy (not my school !).

Many many students live as I've described. Some worse as also dealing with being young carers or abuse in the home. You need to get out more.

Right back at you. Twisting people's words is quite common on here.

We are not going to agree, no one else cares about maths, so I'll end this here.

Unbelievable. That post made me feel nauseous. Ivory towers

Oh yes they do (we could start a whole panto !). There is a range of offers given by Oxbridge. And contextual data is not just about economics. Surely you know this ???? Richer kids get contextual offers too if young carers or have been in care etc.

I am never surprised anymore about the lack of awareness in this country about how many people live in real poverty. And how dare these kids have aspirations and be as bright as there's !!!!

Thankfully Unis, especially the beloved favourite 5, really love these kids as they know how hard they have worked to achieve. Oxbridge outreach is outstanding and why so many of our choose to go there - that and they are cheap !

You cared enough about Maths to keep responding, except that you ignored the one with the data showing your misunderstanding of how FM is used.

It does matter because MumsNetters have other DC and may wrongly think their DC are not eligible for certain degree programmes because they lack FM, if they go by what you write.

Yes dear. Have a lovely Easter

I plan to, Granny

No one on this thread has suggested otherwise. Your last sentence suggests you think I am wring to say this, so find a post that does.

Edit: wrong to say this

Oh I wish I was !!! My kids are far too career focussed though so no little ones around yet. Can not wait though. I will definitely retire then.

Happy Easter to all our wonderful young doctors, working today or not. I'll be beeping you on the picket lines next week. Thanks for all you do ❤️

@mumsneedwine You will find very few students in the circumstances you specifically described become doctors. There are poorer folk from highly educated backgrounds but the parents are often choosing to do little because they don’t need to. I’m not out of touch but you are referring to a specific set of circumstances and medical school. You don’t have any idea of how msny dc get to medical school when living 7 in a 2 bed tower block flat and working for food as well as taking 3 hard A levels. You simply don’t know this from any data. So you make up a story to suit your ends.

I'm not sure either, but that's what they say, and their research shows that it is, in general, the correct approach:

"The Colleges of the University of Cambridge take several types of contextual information that can be indicative of disadvantage into account as part of their holistic assessment of applicants, but in contrast to many other highly selective Universities, they do not systematically reduce the standard offer level for admission of such applicants (also known as making differential offers, or as the practice of contextual admissions)".

Because:

"The findings did not provide support for the idea that the potential of students with characteristics associated with disadvantage was underestimated by their A Level attainment, or for differential offers. None of the non-academic characteristics associated with disadvantage had any significant positive effects on examination performance (which would be expected if performance was underestimated by A Levels), but nearly all of them were at least sometimes found to have statistically significant (albeit usually quite small) negative effects, and otherwise had non significant effects.
The negative effects were seen for students from maintained schools or ones with few recent Oxford/Cambridge offers, from low IMD quintile areas, ethnicities other than White, declared disability, mature, female, and care experienced students. This suggests that each type of disadvantage may, at least in some circumstances, individually contribute to a constraining impact on the translation of a student’s potential into their actual Cambridge examination performance".

https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/differential_offers_paper_for_publication.pdf

Is there anyone with enough patience to explain to mumsneedwine, preferably in words of one syllable, why a graduate of a 5 year PBL course with BBC at A-level differs from a graduate of a traditional 6 year Cambridge degree with 3 A stars at A-level?

What @Marchesman says is consistent with what I have heard in presentations at STEMM admissions conferences.

I was given to understand that Oxford lays on extra support for applicants from certain backgrounds, and may sometimes admit them if they miss their offer by one grade. Both Oxford and particularly Cambridge [claim to] prioritise applicants from Q1 and other underrepresented backgrounds for interview.

But admissions tutors have a lot of flexibility.