Medicine 2025 entry

[HGC2]

Inspired and slightly terrified reading the 2023 entry threads and how much prep has to go into a medicine application!

DC wants to do medicine, probably in Scotland as a Scottish student, doing well at school but this doesn't seem to be enough! School has little / no experience of applications for medicine as a not fantastic state school!

Can anyone advise what work experience / volunteering they will need (currently volunteering at sports club with hope of job)
what are the spreadsheets that people talk about?
How do you strategically apply?

I have one child at uni and they just applied and got a place, this seems like a whole other level!

In 2005 the cost of living was not so bad so students didn't need to factor it in so much (lots avoid London now due to cost of rents).

The world is a v different place and doctors are in a v different position. Anyone heard of FPR ?

Unexpecteddrivinginstructor you say that you imagine that many of the changes above are as a result of the research, both nationally and in individual schools. Absolutely. The research states that it has clear objectives and the flip side of which schools do better in post graduate exams is the correlation between medical negligence claims and certain medical schools. This is mentioned in the research and seems to be the reason underlying the call for the introduction of the MLA:

'a study in the US, for instance, found that graduates of different medical schools differed in their likelihood of malpractice claims 29]. We believe that our data provide a prima facie case that differences in performance exist between UK medical schools, and thus support the case for the routine collection and audit of performance data of UK medical graduates at all postgraduate examinations, as well as the introduction of a national licensing examination'.

The research referred to is from the US but clearly its conclusion ('Consistent differences in malpractice experience exist among medical schools') is regarded as being capable of valid comparison this side of the pond.

So this all seems relevant to the scramble for jobs after F2, but also for the general safety of patients. The MLA seems like a very good thing.

A bit old (2019, so it may well have changed massively in the past 5 years) but data on page 24 would suggest that getting into training post F2 is much of a much amongst all medical schools, with Lancaster topping the table (probably impacted somewhat by their relatively smaller cohort). The GMC register has similar datasets which shows the same.
https://foundationprogramme.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/04/F2%20CDS_2019.pdf

Full pay restoration would be good. You mention your DD doing locum shifts to make up lost pay during the strikes. The amount of pay lost is now huge for many of these young doctors.

There really is a deafening silence from the politicians on the election trail whenever they're asked direct questions about the situation for doctors/ lack of training places and about pay restoration. Nothing there at all.

It should come as no surprise that medical schools that set the highest academic targets for selection have students who achieve the highest academic results several years down the line.

Sloejelly yes for sure although the postgraduate exams do test more than the purely academic to be fair.

Full pay restoration would be good.

It is unaffordable without significant changes to the NHS, its scope and how it is paid for.

Again, for sure.

Sybill page 24 is showing clinical appointments as opposed to specialty training, so quite a broad brush. Page 5 shows the squeeze on places for specialty training even five years ago. Page 6 shows the downwards trend of places. I'm sure there must be numbers for 2022 and 2023 too which would also be interesting to see.

@Sloejelly Oxford require AAA. Plymouth A star AA. I assume you believe Plymouth graduates are the superior ones ?

Full pay restoration for an F1 doctor means £4.25 an hour more. From £15.53 to a massive £19.78. They are not asking for that in one go, never have done. For an F2 it's about £6 an hour more.

It's cost twice as much to deal with the strikes than it would have done to settle them, so the money is v obviously there.

Anyway. This is an applying to medicine thread so I really do bus think we should focus on that.

I know. I need to shut up, but PAs start on £45,000. So the money is there ...

mumsneedwine Oxford doesn't sift for academic ability by A level grades but by GCSEs, aptitude tests and interviews. In the scheme of things A level grades are of minor importance to it across all subjects, not just Medicine.

Don't you feel at all sorry for the PAs? They're mostly pretty young too, just doing a job which was touted as valuable. It must be miserable for them at the moment.

@pivoinerose I feel v sorry for them - my DS has some lovely PA friends. But I also feel v sorry for our F1 and 2 doctors who are suddenly facing unemployment with their £100,000 of debt, whilst PAs are taking their jobs.

@pivoinerose and lots of Unis shortlist for medicine using GCSEs, aptitude tests and interviews so not sure what that point is ?

Maybe we should start a new thread for mums of newly qualified doctors. Mine's an "F3" eyeing up Australia and stuck in the bottleneck 🥲

Sorry to hear that Sluj. Good idea to start a new thread.

@Sluj it's so sad isn't it. And happened so quickly.

A very mild point. Oxford famously doesn't care about A levels (up to a point) whereas the majority of other medical schools have a completely different type of interview (in terms of questions asked also number of interviews) and a further safety net with relatively high A level tariffs. You can't compare on the basis of the conditional offer grades.

The issue with unplaced medical school students is going to be worse for the next two years as there was a big jump in numbers starting medical degrees in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid exam grade inflation.

One other issue I saw was that the NHS can distinguish between UK and overseas applicants for junior doctor positions. In most other sectors you can only appoint an overseas applicant if you can prove you can’t recruit within the UK. It seems extraordinary that this isn’t the case for doctors, so expensively trained UK doctors are not retained.

Though they interview based on GCSE grades.

Prospective medics. Know what you're getting into. And then be proactive about making it change. It was not like this when my DD applied so things can change fast. Let's hope from now on in it's for the better.

If not got the date or centre you want for UCAT check again next week as more dates might be available at your centre.

@Sloejelly and we are the only country in the world who don't prioritise our own graduates. It's total madness.

@pivoinerose Cambridge interview huge numbers.

mumsneedwine (pending a potential new thread) do you have the numbers for unplaced F2s? The report linked to above by Sybill shows (on page six) how numbers for places have declined from 2011 to 2019 but do have up to date figures to hand? It would be interesting (to me) to see what has happened between 2019 and 2024.