New Med Schools lock out home students

[giveandtake]

Story in the Sunday Times yesterday.

Brunel and Chester will only train lucrative international students, who pay £45,000 per year.

Presumably, the students will be taught by a fair number of medical professors; the latter trained by the tax funded NHS; in taxpayer funded hospitals and grant supported institutions.

Meanwhile, homegrown pupils with A stars and first class degrees, are left to wither on the vine, such is the ridiculous competition for places.

This is shameful and demotivating/insulting to our students, led to believe that merit and hard work may give them a chance at a medical career.

Once trained, what is to prevent the newly trained fledgling medics from returning overseas?

Please be assured that the international paying students will almost certainly return overseas.

it’s a national disgrace, please direct your anger towards the government that don’t want to fund medical school places, or any other HCP training

good way to kill off the NHS though, which I presume is the idea

I agree this is disgraceful. I presume the article is behind a paywall but I wish we could see it. This is the kind of thing we need to bring to the attention of our MPs of all parties, but we need to be certain of the facts

I'll try to copy and paste.

Here's a section from the Chester School website:

"Our 4-year graduate entry medicine degree is the quickest way of obtaining a primary medical qualification in the United Kingdom. We accept students from a wide variety of backgrounds and your first degree need not be in a science subject."

A wide variety of backgrounds. But no poor and no home applicants!

OK, Brunel confirms on their website that their course is currently for international students only, although they hope to open for home students as soon as possible. I have done a long stint as a STEM admissions tutor, and I can assure you that home admissions, and planning a curriculum for a homogeneous cohort with a British education, would have been much easier than starting with an international cohort. This is either about the dosh, or the GMC cap on medical school places.

The Chester website is extremely coy, but the Medic Mind website confirms OP that the new graduate medical degree is for international students only. Presumably for the same reason(s).

Both medical schools make clear use of NHS resources.

Thanks for your excerpt, OP!

The cap has gone back to pre-pandemic levels. Those universities have not been allowed to recruit home students. Blame the Government, not the unis - they'd love to be able to attract home applicants.

It’s not the Universities who are deciding this, it’s OfS. The unis won’t have permission yet to teach home students. They have to have a small international cohort go through first before they are assessed to be able to cope with a full body of students. The press are putting a spin on it.

@titchy yes it’s OfS not the Unis

Chester does medicine? Who knew.

More than 100 on the Brunel course, according to the Times.

But isn’t there an issue with there not being enough places for F1 doctors

Pretty sure Guildford is also for full fee paying students only.

I read this yesterday and was appalled too.

Let them use UK students to test the course.

Absolutely about the money.

Thank you, @Babooshka1991 . This seems odd in a different way: overseas students and their eventual patients are good enough to be guinea pigs for new programmes that aren’t ready to trial on the home grown? If true, it reeks to me of colonialism. But then am not British.

Very interesting, however, and makes me annoyed at the Times for its spin. I expected better.

good way to kill off the NHS though, which I presume is the idea

Yup.

Although you should note the fee level. That is only a bit more than what it actually costs UK universities to train medical doctors. So this is also why there are not enough UK students as doctors in training.

Yes - hence I assume why new med schools have to be assessed with O/S students who are unlikely to be competing for the limited number of F1 vacancies.

There's no point expanding med school places if those extra graduates can't actually get jobs!

"Yes - hence I assume why new med schools have to be assessed with O/S students who are unlikely to be competing for the limited number of F1 vacancies."

What's to stop them competing for the limited number of F1 vacancies?

What will happen to the tuition fees, the £45k/year, who gets that?

And what's wrong with using UK students to test out the schools, if that's the rationale?

At 45k per year, the courses are fully finalised, surely!

Historically it’s been cheaper for the treasury to poach doctors from abroad than train them at home. With Brexit and the shambles the UK is in at the moment the poaching is getting harder and harder. Seems the government is sticking its head in the sand again rather than just accepting we need more doctors and letting the unis actually train some!

What's to stop them competing for the limited number of F1 vacancies?

Most overseas students return to their home countries.

Tuition fees go to the uni - like all tuition fees.

Assessing a new course with home students means the cap has to be increased which it isn't currently being for several reasons including projected F1 vacancies.

Capacity to offer clinical placements is also a massive massive problem that hospitals have - it's not as simply as 'offer more applicants a place'.

There is a central government cap through the OfS that lines up with the graduate positions (F1) available.

medical schools without home places from OfS are simply not allowed to recruit home students.

you need to direct your ire to the government, not the universities

A hospital doctor could say get through 20 patients in their Tuesday outpatient clinic, or 15 patients if they have a medical student with them.

What option would you choose?

I cancelled my Times sub and don't miss it. The spin and dogwhistling was horrendous.