Should we care that 50% of state schools didn't produce any medicine applicants in 3 years?

[legallady]

Well if no one from those schools wanted to study medicine then maybe not but if they are not achieving the grades to be able to apply or are not being given the correct advice then maybe we should.

Certainly it seems wrong that half of applicants in that time frame came from independent and grammar schools. It suggests that our qualified doctors a few years down the line will come from a very narrow demographic - similar to our lawyers and politicians - and that can't be good for our society.

What (if anything) is going wrong?

Rabbit, but there must be a group of children out there who have very caring personalities who would be good at these jobs. Why aren't we doing more to promote this caring for the elderly/disabled etc as an occupation? I suspect it's because we as parents don't want to encourage our children to do something that is low pay and not good conditions and also because schools just write off the low-achieving children as no-hopers.

I think the work experience aspect is a huge one. I once sat in the Out of Hours in our local hospital (50 miles away) listening to a very posh doctor bemoaning the lack of work experience for his son to another. And yet, our pupils would have to travel 50 miles each way to that very hospital. So if a consultant's son can't get help - our kids are buggered. The main hospital is 120 miles away and do offer a week of organised experience (with accommodation) but you have to HAVE you grades for Medical School already, before they will admit you. This often means pupils having to take a year off - more expense for parents, particularly in the winter as all casual employment here is seasonal.

Our local GP can't take them as it is too local. Their only options are working with children (ie primary school helper) or with the elderly in the local care home. But, with only 8 beds and limited facilities for day care (when pupils are at school) this can't help much.

It is even become difficult to get into nursing / other medical careers for the same reasons. It disproportionately advantages city kids.

"It disproportionately advantages city kids."

Children who live in cities have all sorts of advantages, full stop!

AFAIK, children are not allowed to do work experience with doctors because of the confidential nature of the work. In our local trust, it makes no difference if it a city hospital or district hospital, if the doctor is posh(!!) or not.

wordfactory
As for numbers of privately educated and grammar schools at sixth form; More DC defect to them from non selective state than vice versa

I know that historically the percentage of 6th form pupils at fee paying schools was higher
when the school leaving age was 16
Is it still the case - now that the school leaving age has been effectively raised to 18?

'There are so many reasons for the failures in these schools. Staffing is one. '

I am surprised at that.
I come from a family of teachers who always say that you find the best staff in the roughest schools and at independent/grammar schools (where it is easy to teach) the worst because you can get away with bad teaching because the kids by and large want to do well and will turn to other sources if need be.

"Rabbit, a child who can only achieve b's and c's at A level is likely to struggle at medical school."

Kings offer an extended medical degree programme (6 years) to 50 students every year from non-selective state schools (they have a list of schools and FE colleges they take students from) and will take those with BBB, as long as they've been completed within 2 years.

Apparently this course has a good retention rate and turns out just as many good doctors as any other.

I think they should extend this programme to more medical schools, if it is successful and workable.

Right.
Time to curtail the pontificating
www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1897&Itemid=239#pi
Table SP4
lists the percentage of State school entrants for each category of degree in 2012/13.

Medicine is low - only 71.4% of medical school students had attended State School
most other categories are in the high 80s, low 90s
but its a lot more than 50%

So it sounds like OP has rehashed the well debunked story about State 6th form colleges not getting kids into Russell Group etc
without realising that 6th forms specialise.

NB
As per chart subject1213 on that link, less than 20,000 students started full time Medical courses that year, compared with over 30,000 starting Law.

I'd rather we had more doctors and less Lawyers TBH

I doubt very much whether all 30,000 of those Law graduates end up practising as barristers or solicitors, though, whereas virtually 100% of medical graduates will work as doctors, for a time, at least.

I think there's a fixed number of medical school places each year, so you can rather more medical students than lawyers all you like, but they can squeeze more people into law degrees.

Sleepytea - why aren't we doing more to promote caring as a profession? Because aggression and competitiveness are prised over what used to be considered feminine virtues? Because society still hasn't got used to the idea that we can't take advantage of those doing the work and expect them to do it for nothing, now that women refuse to take that role on automatically as a societal demand and expectation? Because it is so incredibly badly paid that it is hard to support a family on the money earned? Because society doesn't understand that the level of caring and compassion required to do that sort of work for strangers day in, day out (or even your own family) is more rare than we think, so we don't value it enough? Because people don't get paid what they are worth if there is so much need for the service that employers have to recruit those who don't care and can't find work anywhere else, too? Because our society doles out respect to those with the wealth and power, neither of which you get from putting others before yourself?

Talkin - what's a Pompey private school?

Pompey = nickname for Portsmouth, I think.

Sorry Dapple I knew that Aggghast would know. Yes, Pompey is Portsmouth

Mimsy
Agreed, but as there are certain strategically important professions, the fact that Med Students qualify with well over £100,000 of student loans - thus suppressing their earnings by 9% for several years
is surely part of the reason that the NHS would collapse if we could not import as many overseas medical staff as we do.

A doctor from a Scottish University with no fees will have 9% higher wages than his English trained colleague - doing the same job in the same hospital ....

PS
The Work experience / Internship issue is absolutely critical
because for Admissions staff, the extra information is one of the ways to differentiate between the serried ranks of A* grade students.

For those who cannot afford the spare time to go and do unpaid stuff, or whose parents cannot afford to pay extra travel costs, the rug has been pulled before they get their grades.

The arrogance of those posters wealthy enough to not realise that £17 a week in bus fares makes a difference to many families
is breathtaking.

Talkin' that is very unfair.

DD has repeatedly been told that it is not how much voluntary work you do, but what you get out of it. I cannot see why "poverty" should prevent someone find the time to engage with the elderly, disabled or young within their community. At the moment DD volunteers once a week. London, and only about a mile away, so she walks. However poverty should not be a barrier to helping an elderly neighbour with dementia or a mother with a disabled child or something similar.

Medical schools are open to candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds. To find something creative if there were barriers to more usual voluntary work ought to be fine. To do nothing simply because you are "poor" sounds reasonably feeble to me.

DD can't get a placement with our local Health Trust because she does not go to a school within the borough. The fact that she can see her school from her bedroom window and that very few in our part of the borough attend local schools, is neither here nor there. She wont have any hospital experience, but hey ho. Other than the fact that she can walk so does not need fare money I can't see how she is particularly advantaged. The organisation she volunteers for is crying out for more help.

Veterinary science, which your daughter wanted to do, sounds very different. There I think they want oodles of experience with different kinds of animals.

Needmoresleep
helping an elderly neighbour with dementia
How on earth would that be verified / proved? - when DD did her Vet work experience, the letter afterwards was an essential part.

To do nothing simply because you are "poor" sounds reasonably feeble to me
Kids will do what they can, but the potential resources and home support networks just are not there.
When Saturday and evening jobs are an essential part of the family income, and Child Benefit stops when the A Level exams do,
let alone if you live outside London where stuff is not walking distance ....

the over representation of those from London and the well heeled
in the best career opportunities sadly makes sense

The arrogance of those posters wealthy enough to not realise that £17 a week makes a difference to many families is breathtaking

Make your mind up Talkin, earlier in the week you were telling us that
DD is at 6th form college 15 miles from here : the annual bus pass is £667 that is affordable

Going back to the OP, I think what this demonstrates once again is that Secondary school provision across the country is unacceptably patchy. The fact that many Mumsnetters are happy with the schools their DC attend will be of no comfort to a parent who can only access a school or schools that is unsatisfactory or in special measures. Or failing to produce a single applicant for medicine if that is where their DC's ambitions lie.

Thank you mimsy and talkin.

What's your dd's experience of veterinary science Talkin? Is your dd having trouble getting onto a course and if so why?

Talkin I am afraid you are talking without any real knowledge of how suitable experience for prospective medical students is judged according to their circumstances. No keen student would be penalised for not being able to afford to travel to hospital or wherever or having the right contacts or whatever you would like to imagine. The whole point of selection is to make sure that students are making contact and showing willingness to engage in areas of need.

marni
the colleges have hardship funds : and have access to pupil premium - work experience does not

atoughyear
DD is in AS year. She loved working at the vet
but
decided against doing it as a degree for lots of reasons

• the animals were fine, but the owners drover her potty which was the reason she had ruled out medicine
• its a 5 year course where you are expected to work for free in every single holiday - no chance to be a dissolute student like her parents
• at the end you are a vet and nothing else
• unlucky vets end up working in abbatoirs

SO she's aiming for Biochemistry which leavers her options wide open and leaves room for a vet masters layer

She sounds incredibly switched in Talkin.

atoughyear
I hope so.
I've tried to make opportunities available but not push her in any way.
DS will be harder work equally bright but three times as lazy
BUT
My kids have always known that DH visits every possible type of school so his views on their options are the really important ones - and he went to Comps right through

Veterinary experience is much harder to acquire for the non rural, poorer student with no contacts. The high number of A GCSE required is the same as for medicine. Those high numbers of A are the real barriers for DCs from certain state schools.