King's College Medical School dumbs down
The Times has today picked up on the BMJ report from King’s College, London on “Widening participation in medicine” or, to give it its correct name, the “Extended Medical Degree Programme” (EMDP)
(EMDP) aimed to attract bright students from state schools in inner London who had A-level results that were far too poor to gain entry to medical school and show that, with the right help, they could succeed. Students would normally require two As and a B at A level, but the scheme, called the Extended Medical Degree Programme, accepted those who had managed no better than three Cs. (The Times)This is a warm, cuddly Shawshank Redemption sort of story. Select a small number of students from sink comprehensives, measure their IQs and, if they are high enough, let them into medical school and follow them through. Early outcome analysis shows that most of them do well. Have a cup of cocoa and listen to this:
If only life were like that. Let us look at the reality of the EMDP programme:
The selected students have an extra year at medical school and they are hot-housed. They have regular additional tutorials compared to “ordinary” students. Currently, the programme is supported by two full time academics; one part time administrator; four part time academics and 15 postgraduates and academics who provide about 130 small group tutorials per year. A conservative estimate for the total cost for this is £190,000.
…many of the students who are from lower professional and managerial groups have a Black African heritage and from families headed by women….Many of the students classified as being from semiroutine and routine backgrounds are from South African families. (BMJ)Two days ago we looked at Cambridge Univeristy dumbing down its entrance requirements. Now the medical schools are at it. At least Cambridge has done it fairly, by doing it across the board. That cannot be said for this initiative. This initiative is positive discrimination with distinctly racist undertones. It stinks. It depended on trawling through a predefined list of inner London sink comprehensives and selecting “suitable” students. It was not open to all schools or to all students. It was not a "double blind trial" and probably only succeeded because a huge amount of time and money was spent on hot-housing the selected students. It is not something upon which you can generalise.
Robert is a patient of mine. He is 19 now. He failed to get into medical school last year. He does not belong to any modern “right-on” minority. He is white and heterosexual. He does not have dyslexia, tracking disorders or ADHD. He probably puts C of E on forms that ask about religion. He is the only child of a single parent family. His father was killed in an RTA when he was a toddler. Robert went to one of the local comprehensives. It is not a sink comprehensive but it is not good. They rarely get anyone into Oxbridge. They supported Robert as best they could. He got 4 A*s, 5 As and a B at GCSE. He went on to do Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology for AS level and got 3 As and a B. He was offered 2 As and a B to get into medical school (probably a slightly lower offer than he would have got had he been at a private school). He got an A and 2 Bs. By his own admission, he “cocked up” the maths paper. So Robert is not going to medical school.
How would Robert view EDMP? I will ask him the next time I see him. How would Hillary Clinton view it, and why does she get so many blue collar votes? Listen again to Barack Obama’s towards “A more perfect union” speech.
…the scheme is politically correct, but costly. The extra cost is £190,000 a year. Professor Chris McManus, of University College London, and Hugh Ip, of the journal, question whether this is justified. The scheme involves sacrificing equality of opportunity for the quest for social justice, they say.You cannot legislate to impose equality of outcome. You cannot achieve equality of outcome by crude social engineering. Equality of outcome is an egalitarian fanatasy. But you can work towards equality of opportunity. It is a searing indictment of the state education system that more and more universities are finding ways (with a New Labour fiscal dagger at their throats) to let poorly educated teenagers from sink comprehensives through their doors. Of course some of the children at these schools are getting a raw deal. Of course children from first generation immigrant families find it more difficult to cope in the education system. But you do not solve the problem by dumbing down university entrance requirements.
“Is it worth our while to widen participation, particularly if this risks reducing standards?” they ask. “Political ideology says yes, but the evidence is pending and the costs are rising fast.” (BMJ editorial)
You solve it by improving the schools.
Labels: classical education, dumbing down, King's College, Medical Schools, sink comprehensives
87 Comments:
What a thoroughly depressing bit of poppy cock - educational attainment is simply a reflection of the social conditions that children are exposed to.
Nothing to do with 'intelligence' a concept that even 'experts' can't agree on.
I'll concede there may be a TINY strata of very clever bastards who are intrinsically gifted, in music say, or math.
The rest is simply middle class competitiveness writ large throughout our educational or professional institutions - plus a percentage of driven, yet curiously anxious working class grafters trying to gate crash the top table.
Sorry, A&E charge nurse, I think what you've said is absolute rubbish. Imagine if sporting teams had to take allcomers rather than the gifted or those showing potential? Some people are 'smarter' than others. I won't be picked for my state footy team any time soon, and the vast majority of people will not cope with medical school, law school, or, for that matter, a nursing degree. As Dr C says, you cannot guarantee equality of outcome - but you can give everyone a chance to be the best they can be.
You should do a piece on the “right on” politically correct equal pay bollocks
For instance the current dispute between BT and the unions is around the fact the unions think they have not levelled the pay to men and women doing the same grade, total bollocks I am afraid, the grading structure does not reflect what real folk do, and men, like it or not, on average across the board I) work more hours ii) work away from home more often iii) take bigger risks with their careers to get on – all of which act against any nirvana “equal pay”
Things are made worse by pay freezes on “management” when in actual fact many of the best senior technical staff are in management grades
The stupid over unionisation
The phenomenal redundancy packages, which lead to anyone with any sense of self worth leaving anyways
The massive off shoring to India, screwing up customer satisfaction at the same time
Etc etc
So much politically correct bollocks in the unions and HR arseholes in these big companies, and it does so much to damage our national competitiveness
I'm not sure what I think about all of this. I'm in my third year of medical school and got in the conventional way. I'm middle class, private school edcuated and white, so obviously can't comment with any great authority on the difficulties experienced by someone who hasn't had the high standard of education I've been lucky enough to have.
I think we have two problems identified in this article and post.
Firstly, the standard of teaching in many state schools is, from what I can tell, abysmal. As Dr. Crippen says, this should be where money is going to get it up to standard. No question.
Secondly, a problem has been identified in that selecting students for medical school is very, very hard. This is what the BMAT and UKCAT have tried to do, with varying success, and if KCL have come up with a decent test for discovering who is well suited to be a doctor then mad props to them, because they have succeeded where many others have failed.
The solution is not to have a two-tier course with deprived students getting extra tuition at the beginning, the solution is to improve the standard of education in schools so that every entrant to medical school is able to cope with the course as-is.
We also need to come up with a gold-standard test for identifying those who will make good doctors, and this needs to be applied across the board to people from all different backgrounds.
Finally, statistics-wise, the figure of £190,000/year is utterly meaningless. Is this per student? The Times' quality has gone downhill.
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John, this has annoyed me - "He does not belong to any modern “right-on” minority. He is white and heterosexual"
Yeah? Good for him! But I am gay and did not choose to be, and I doubt whether anyone can choose their racial identity either. Gays and ethnic minorities aren't "just doing it" to be "right-on". My being a lesbian isn't a lifestyle choice, I'm the same as anyone else in my economic situation, a working housewife trying to make ends meet, who just happens to have a female partner rather than a male one.
As you made such specific reference to his heterosexuality I'm assuming you must know something I don't about specific educational provision and professional favouritism toward gay and lesbian young people? Please do let me know, as neither my partner or myself are benefitting from this. Maybe that's because we're just dirty povs from the North, rather than shouty bi-curious sloanes.
Whatever your problem with 'positive discrimination' programmes for young black and asian students, don't drag sexuality into it. Many a commentator has destroyed a perfectly good argument against this sort of programme by tacking on something about "that right-on gay lot". You cannot equate race issues with those purely about sexuality, so stop lumping the two together. Don't imply that because your patient is heterosexual that he is somehow worse off, because that's bullshit.
Now I shall take some time for my day to weep for the poor white, middle-class straight boy, that most abused member of society.
(reposted as I accidentally used the wife's account the first time)
anonymous 3.13pm I can't comment on the equal pay claim at BT, but certainly in other sectors where equal pay claims are being considered, your argument around this is untrue. You say men should get more pay because they work longer hours, work away from home more, and take more risks with their career.
There have been many equal pay claims in Local Government where none of this applies. For example, cooks in school kitchens have successfully won claims as men in other occupations e.g. caretakers, bin men;street cleaners, etc are paid considerably more than them. None of these workers work away from home or work more than their contracted hours, and takinga risk with your career is not an issue for these workers.
The reality is that until the equal pay legislation it was perfectly legal for employers to pay women less than men, and most employers did. Indeed employers argued thsi was fair as men were the breadwinners and women only worked for 'pin money'. This led to occupations that are dominated by women often being paid less than jobs of similar value. The work around equal pay is now looking to remedy this situation.
Incidentally, as I understand it, firms aren't doing this to be 'politically correct' but because legislation has forced them into it. For example, Local Government has had unequal pay between occupations traditionally done by men and women for many years even though this is illegal. A number of workers have won theie equal pay claims in the courts, and thsi has cost the authorities concerned a lot of money. As a result the unions agreed with Local Government not to take any equal pay claims to the court; whilst Local Government review the pay levels of all staff in relation to equal pay legislation.
There has been some unhappiness that the unions have agreed this as some have argued that workers going through the court actually got a better deal such as back pay than Local Government are coming up with.
I appreciate BT is not Local Government, but the equal pay claims that have been won in the courts recently have put pressure on all large employers to look seriously at this issue.
They should apply a filter for students (such as sixth formers on work experience) keen on studying medicine- stick them in a busy dept (e.g. A&E) for a week, following the stressed SHO around on his/her entire shift. Give them a bleep that they MUST answer within a certain time limit no matter what. Let them get physically or at least verbally abused by some unhappy patients +/ their relatives/friends. Let them get bullied by the seniors.
If the student tolerates all that- he/she's probably got what it takes.
John
Is your objection to the whole idea of positive discrimination, or "trying to spot potential"? Or just to it being used for medical school entrance? British Afro-Caribbean kids are almost totally missing from the UK medical school student population, so it is easy to see why someone somewhere might feel they have to do something about it.
And it is hardly a secret that the US Ivy League schools, the richest private Univs in the most free market of all University systems, do precisely this sort of thing for their undergraduate (Bachelor) degree programmes.
While I agree that the proper solution should be to sort out secondary schooling and social exclusion, can one blame King's for taking the plunge?
Or is your objection really to the idea that Govt (which presumably is backing this financially via some grant scheme) is using this sort of thing as a figleaf to disguise their failure to do something about schools and social exclusion? On that I think I would agree.
Dr C, I agree with you on this post but not your one on Cambrdge dropping foreign language GCSE requirements. The deference is that good A-levels are relevent to medical school admission whereas GCSE french is not relevent to admission to Cambridge (for most degrees). Cambridge has removed an artificial and unneccessary obstacle to admissions which I welcome. The medical school has removed a obstacle to admission which was errected for a very good reason. It worries me that less clever folk will be able to become doctors. It doesn't worry me that a gifted student with 4 A* A-levels, good marks in the Cambridge entrance exams and a good interview will now be able to read Physics at Cambridge despite having not bothered to take a GCSE language.
Oh dear, oh dear, sad sick minion, I was not meaning it in the way you are taking it; not at all.
I was talking, though, about POSITIVE discrimination; I entirely agree with your implication that for far too long gays/lesbians have been appallingly discriminated against and that that needs putting right. No, I wasn't suggesting that gays/lesbians have a fast track into medical school....
...but you must accept that, in certain areas, positive discrimination has disadvantaged the majority.
For example, same sex couples are now accorded similar properly rights to married couples, and quite right too.
But what about to elderly sisters who have lived together for 50 years in what was the parental family home and then, when one dies, the other has to sell her home to pay death duties? That is not right, is it?
We will never be able to legislate for a level playing field in all area, but this was not meant as an attack on gays/lesbians or children with ADHD, and apologies if that is the inference you took.
John
Nick - women in certain cultures do far less well than men academically (see Yemen) is it because men are "smarter" ?
You offer a sporting analogy, so why is it that the 100metres is totally dominated by black athletes ?
Innate ability is a factor in all human endeavour but not always the most important and I do tire of the advantaged patting themselves on the back for passing a few o-levels.
Hiya John, sorry, wasn't me it was the other half. It's a sore spot for her at the moment, as she's been refused leave to take care of me when a colleague of hers has been given 'special leave' to care for her husband.
I actually agree about the sisters, I just think it was pursued in the wrong way. (ie. - trying to use the civil partnership laws) Perhaps there was provision they could've made earlier to ensure the money was not subject to the same amouunt of inheritance tax? I'd assumed if the home was joint property it passed to the surviving sibling, and remained in her hands until she died, and was then subject to taxation before being divided between her decedents?
FWIW I know that 'positive discrimination' often does more harm than good. The current 'Labour' govts policy of 'University education at all costs' is a shining example of that. Their claim that everyone should have higher education has created a society comprised of Uni dropouts (who should never have been pushed there in the first place), massive fees for current students to cover the dropout/failure rate of their predecessors, and a world where plumbers, brickies, and gas-fitters can command almost any amount of money they wish, because a whole generation was taught that manual labour was beneath them, and so skilled fitters and labourers are rare. We have massive numbers claiming JSA saying "I'm not picking fruit for £9 an hour!" while our crops rot in the fields. Pressuring working class kids into university, making them rack up mountains of debt in search of an unobtainable dream is forcing this country to it's knees.
We have one nephew who is 17 and earns £400 a week as an apprentice brickie. His brother is 22, on his 4th year at Uni, working 2 low-paid food service jobs to keep a roof over his head, and looks to be on the verge of a dramatic collapse. He never should've got a place on his course. Sure he's bright enough, but he has severe dyslexia and dyspraxia, and all the assistance and resits in the world (he has roughly 3 attempts at every set of exams yearly) won't help him keep an engineering job in the real world.
We need to make people take pride in whatever jobs they can do. We can't all be doctors or lawyers, we need bus drivers, food service workers, admin staff, field labourers, plumbers etc.
Education needs to be improved across the board, no more wishy-washy Yank theories about not using red pen in case it affects a child's self-esteem, giving everyone a trophy, not allowing any kid to come last at sports day. We need solid educational reform, so that we don't have to go to schools and say "Right I want ten underacheiving black kids, 4 asians, 3 Poles and a couple of travellers". Every child needs to be able to reach their full potential, no matter how great or small that may be.
(The Real SSM this time!)
Positive discrimination is wrong.
In this case, however, it's a moot point, as for all the talk of potential, it's really as simple as this - if you can't get AAA or AAB at A-level, it's really highly improbable you are going to be able to get through a medical degree. There's a lot to learn - conceptual and factual - and A-levels are a demonstration of ability that someone has what it takes. If that's not the case anymore then find something else that is.
Of course this is a problem that needs to be solved in schools - because by the time kids are applying to university it's too late. Anyone COULD be a 'contender' but not everybody actually IS one. For those who believe they have the 'potential' and don't get the grades but still want to do it, they do (or at least should) have the option to go back and try to prove themselves again. But when you talk about scientific, academic disciplines, you can't just drift through by having potential. They require an actual pyramid of knowledge with an actual solid foundation. Irrespective of where you OR your parents went to school. Simple as that.
My partner works as a counsellor at a University and is now counselling a number of students who receive weekly counselling paid for by their local authority as aprt of their disability support package. Sounds great in principle, the unfair part is that some of these students are not doing degrees where mental health problems may not be an insurmountable barrier e.g. design, floristry; but are doing degrees where good mental health is essential e.g. social work.
SSM sorry to hear that your partner hasn't been given special leave like her colleague - no wonder she is angry at the moment
The reality is that they are being set up to fail. If they can't do a social work degree without weekly counselling throughout their degree; they are extremely unlikely to be able to do social work as a paid job. Which doesn't do anyone any favours.
Sorry last comment was me - I hadn't meant to make it anonymous
Exactly, Ollie - thats what I keep trying to tell the Yemenese women who harbor fanciful notions about their suitability for the top table.
Why can't these stupid bints realise that they do not perform as well as men in the classroom ?
Looking at exam results in the Yemen isn't it obvious that men are 'smarter' than women ?
‘You offer a sporting analogy, so why is it that the 100metres is totally dominated by black athletes ?’
a&e charge nurse,
More fast twitch fibres, I believe, is the physiological reason.
In the past these natural advantages were somewhat offset by the fact that athletes from these cultures tended to have less access to the latest physical and mental training techniques, and to dietary, nutrition and coaching advice.
Interestingly, there is some evidence that fast twitch fibres can be converted, through training, to slow twitch fibres, but not the other way round. A bit OT, but I’d be fascinated to know the medical reasons for this (I’m a sports writer).
Ruth - exactly. My nephew, while bright and capable in many fields, will never be able to hold down an engineering job. He cannot make sense of numbers, graphs or schematics. He understands everything he's taught but finds it a real struggle in practical terms. He's done his first year twice, and will probably spend 5 years (full years as he has to spend every summer and winter break resitting exams over and over again) on his 3 year BSc. He'll need a Masters to be able to compete in his field, which will mean more hardship, more assistance, and more eventual debt. No-one's goung to counsel him, or take notes for him in the workplace. He'll be left behind while his little bruv the brickie (who is arguably as intelligent as he is, but hates academic work) is living it up with his own house and car, and a healthy bank balance. Oh, and no debt.
On my BSc. course there were students with 1 or 2 E grades at A-level. The entrance requirement was 3 B grades. Obviously not all places would be filled. Students who could not be placed on any of their UCAS selections due to poor grades were advised to sit a 'combined' degree programme. At the end of every year there were drop-outs in the single hons. BSc, and the combined BA students were invited to apply for places on the BSc to fill spots. These kids invariably struggled. The poorer ones without parental assistance worked in shops, and eventually dropped out due to the stress. The ones being funded entirely by their parents struggled on, and received thirds or were ungraded. It's a waste of time, money, and potential all round.
Oh and as for my partner, she has the misfortune of working for a company which has just fired our friend for being off sick. He had pneumocystis pneumonia due to undiagnosed HIV, which progressed to end-stage HIV/AIDS. Fortunately after 6 months he was able to return to work, but not before his line manager had broken confidentiality and blabbed to virtually everyone in the company. He complained about this, so they sacked him. Their workers are (unofficially) forbidden to unionise though, so it's hard to fight them. At least when I worked for the NHS I was treated (reasonably) professionally, and encouraged to take time to get better rather than being sacked for being ill!
I applied to King's last year for their graduate programme. I'm white, middle class and was educated at a grammar school. I have a good 2.1 degree (but not from a top university), have good A-levels (including As in both Chemistry and Biology), scored in the 92nd percentile in the entrance test (MSAT) and had a paper published in a peer review journal (BJGP).
I worked my socks off to try to get into medical school, got a couple of interviews, but unfortunately didn't get in. This probably has more to do with applicants to places on the GEPs than anything else, but still... I looked into the Access to Medicine programmes, but was "over-qualified" and wouldn't be eligible for the EMDP either.
Programmes like the EMDP make a mockery of all those students who work very hard to get into medical school and don't make it. Might as well go to live in inner London and get Cs at your A-levels. It seems just plain stupid.
(Agree with a & e charge nurse's reaction)
I checked the programme. It offers 50 additional places year, so the white male heterosexual (!) candidates who concern you so greatly -- albeit they fail to get the 3 As you normally tell us all medical students get -- are not being disadvantaged. (Moreover, the extra academic resources are there in part because the 50 places are additional.)
(BMJ) The scheme involves sacrificing equality of opportunity for the quest for social justice,
equality of opportunity means more than pitting someone from Winchester, with 5 As at A Level, against someone from a comprehensive school, with 3 As, and automatically selecting the first candidate. (E.g..)
sick sad minion, first, what happened to your partner is outrageous. Second, I am also sorry to hear about your nephew at university, but agree that the answer is to give all jobs more respect, and, I would add, to introduce a greater equality of reward.
Everybody who's said the answer is to improve the schools. I agree -- though they will never be sufficiently equal that there will be no unfairness -- but what do we do during the many years improvement will take? Is it not unfair to make able but less well educated students suffer the meanwhile?
jayann
We've paid for our gorgeous girls to go through the private system simply because, we can. If they don't 'make it' we can subsidise them, ensure the proper contacts etc.,. I applaud ANY system that brings in those who don't have the means. For god's sake man where are you going with this. Have you no shame...
We've paid for our gorgeous girls to go through the private system simply because, we can. If they don't 'make it' we can subsidise them, ensure the proper contacts etc.,. I applaud ANY system that brings in those who don't have the means. For god's sake man where are you going with this. Have you no shame...
+++++
Where I am going is trying to make an education that you deemed suitable for your gorgeous girls available to all, independent of background, wealth, colour or creed. It is too late to try to pick up the pieces once these children make 18. The years of education have been lost. Ignatious Loyola thought that the years 1 - 7 were enough; how much more so if it is 1 - 18
JOhn
I don't really see anything wrong in this. Positive discrimination in this case is not wrong because it is not diadvantaging those who apply through the normal channels.
To pretend that it is anything other than a sticking plaster on the compound fracture that is our secondary education system is however absurd-it simply is not practical to identify all the best pupils in sink schools throughout the country and develop them in this way
this is not dumbing down (mind you my memory of King's is that this would have been difficult in any case!)
Grow up. That won't happen. It never has and it never will. I pay taxes and hope that they go into providing good, solid education for all. Generally it does. 'Sink comprehensive'? You are playing the devil's advocate. Goodbye.
I am a first generation immigrant. I have 4 childrn, privately educated. 2 are junior doctors, a medic (17 A* + 10 As and 3Bs between them at GCSE and straight As in at least 4 'real' subjects each at A level) ... and I strongly believe this dumped down entry to medicine is disgraceful and WILL lower standards!
So, no need to play the race card here doc, instead, think.... Could this 'dumping down' be an 'intended' outcome? To control the profession further and lower down wages?
I got 6 As and 2 Bs in my A Levels (in 2000). I did this at an FE College where the average attainment level was very poor.
But that wasn't because of the school, as I showed, it was because, frankly, most of the people there were not particularly capable.
As far as I was aware, medicine is an extremely competitive subject, and universities can actually choose between multiple AAA candidates.
I quite frankly dread the thought of being treated by a C-grade student.
A Levels have been dumbed down to an absurd degree. I believe it is worse now, but even when I did them to get a C you had to not 'get' a substantial amount of the subject (particularly given all the coursework, retakes, modules, etc. that you can exploit). I find that quite disturbing.
Robert with his ABB is undoubtedly intelligent and missing by one grade is quite frustrating (though it clearly happens to many many students each year), but CCC is on a completely different plane.
It's not just a case of missing out by a small amount, that's three straight 'mediocres'.
Of course intensively training people that have gone through 13 years of (a) parents who don't care that nuch and (b) schools surrounded by the same, may prove cost-effective, but CCC really frightens me.
When you've got to scrape around Crewe and Nantwich for a win (and we are all aware of your political hue), then you know that the media do run the politics of this country.
Fucking hell, is Crippen wailing again about the terrible lives of that most enfeebled and discriminated against group - white middle class men?
Poor little things, having to share their nice medical schools with oiks and slags from the estate.
As someone with firsthand knowledge/experience of GKT med school and the 'special students' I fel qualified to make some comments.
Firstly they have two programmes running semi side by side. One is aimed at students who are good but don't have the rquired A levels. My friend (who incidentally finished just about top in the entire year) is an example of this. English, chemistry and maths at A-level.
The other is for the 'disadvantaged'. Read the 'blacks'. This is not me being racist, but realistic. Nearly all of the people who are part of the course are black. And nearly all the black people in GKT are on the widening participation course. And yes, even beyond the foundation year they get more help, more teaching and - get this, they even have an entire computer room/study suite entirely for THEIR PERSONAL use. Funded by...the stephen lawrence charity fund.
And they still have shite results in comparison with the rest of the year, with many failing at least one year thus far. (i believe the first lot graduated last june)
If blakc people are disadvantaged at uni level then sort out the education froma pirmary and secondary school level. They are disadvantaged educationally from much earlier on.
And my final comment - just to stir the pot...with this positive discrimination buzz going around why don't they throw some the way of the white male? Because I can assure you that the percentage of medical school graduates who are
a) asian
b) female
are well well well above the proportion of the population they make up.
but of course it would be racist to point that out...
White middle class men don't have much choice about sharing medical school. They are now in the minority.
Females far and away dominate medical schools now, many of the males are ethnic and (from first hand experience of at least 3 medical schools) a significant proportion (this year it was 29% i believe) are lower social class.
The thing we had a talk about was that we had a fair few black women in my year and through medical school but i can only think of 3 black male medical students (ok i don't know everyone but i know/ met most of the 5 years at medical school).
Why so many black women but so few black men?
Widening acess to medical school is a bad idea if it means lowering entry standards.
Medical school may well be teaching more "soft subjects" it just means you have to work harder in your spare time and at medical school to cover everything.
Medicine may not be the hardest subject in the world but it is still pretty difficult. If you can't do better than 3 c's at A level then your going to struggle at medical school.
Believe me if you couldn't ignore your peer group and work at A level where it is mainly committing facts to memory then the distractions of university and the slightly competative atmosphere of medical school will be hard.
s said...
I am a first generation immigrant. I have 4 childrn, privately educated. 2 are junior doctors, a medic (17 A* + 10 As and 3Bs between them at GCSE and straight As in at least 4 'real' subjects each at A level) ... and I strongly believe this dumped down entry to medicine is disgraceful and WILL lower standards!
So, no need to play the race card here doc, instead, think.... Could this 'dumping down' be an 'intended' outcome? To control the profession further and lower down wages?
Friday, May 16, 2008 8:23:00 PM
++++++
You know, S, and I say this after much thought, I think in fact you are being racist. You are sitting there from your perceived moral high ground making wounding remarks.
My point is simple. We need to make sure that ALL children in this country receive the education they need. The first generation immigrant children do NOT get this. You have been lucky enough to buy your children out of the state system. For most, though, this is not possible.
I think it is wrong that a small number of children from poor backgrounds should be pulled out and fast tracked through the system. This is tokenism. It stinks.
ALL children in this country deserve a decent education.
Please don't accuse me of "playing the race card". I have never taken a comment off, but I nearly removed yours, because it is redolent of racism; complacent, privileged, middle class racism. You probably did not mean it like that, but you sail close to the wind.
John
funny pseudonym, but is this because of positive discrimination? -- I doubt it.
Why so many black women but so few black men?
That fits the general pattern of higher academic achievement among African-Caribbean women students (as compared with their male peers).
A more general point.
Females far and away dominate medical schools now,
the percentage of women in medical schools began to rise, and dramatically so, when medical schools stopped selecting on the basis of 'is he a good chap?' plus a medical background -- the latter though often didn't help women -- and substituted A Levels.
If you can't do better than 3 c's at A level
Kings don't simply take people with three Cs, they interview and they test. That way they can pick up the people who could do better than 3 Cs with better teaching. Whether they are actually doing that is of course another matter.
.with this positive discrimination buzz going around why don't they throw some the way of the white male?
anonymous, there certainly is a problem of academic underachievement among both white and African-Caribbean working class males.
Dr crippen sez:
"We need to make sure that ALL children in this country receive the education they need. The first generation immigrant children do NOT get this. "
Hmm, really?
If you look at the statistics, children Chinese and Indian immigrants, many of whom are first generation, FAR out-perform the whites.
I was having lunch today in a fried chicken shop. In came a horde of children, shouting and bellowing. The Chinese man who I was eating with said "My wife went to that school". My colleague said "bloody hell, she made it through that?". The Chinese guy said "Well you don't see any Chinese girls in here acting like savages do you?"
And it is true of course. Both he and his wife are first-generation immigrants, whose parents still now don't speak a word of English, grew up in council flats in inner London.
Yet both are now thoroughly middle class, making six figure salaries in two different investment banks.
Whether or not the education they received was adequate, the reality is the parents make damn sure their kids succeed.
The statistics speak for themselves:
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SBU/b000665/Bweb01-2006.pdf (see page 110)
For 5 GCSEs including maths and English,
Chinese: 67.9%
Indian: 59.1%
White British: 44.8%
Black African: 35.9%
Bangladeshi: 35.4%
Pakistani: 34.1%
Black Caribbean: 28.6%
Statistics from elsewhere:
Irish travellers: 11.1%
Gypsy: 3.9%
And of course the Chinese and Indian children are likely to be slightly more 'deprived' than average, and the distribution of ethnic minorities in areas with poor schooling means that they are far more likely to get what Dr. Crippen regards as an inadequate education.
So perhaps someone should explain to THEIR parents, who, the evidence shows, support and encourage their children and see the value of education, why, when it is clearly possible to achieve and get to Cambridge, Kings College, etc., despite being born of parents whose native tongue is not English and suffering from inferior education, that other children who simply happen to be black, should get special treatment?
Clearly nonsense.
The problem is that too many parents do not care enough about their children's education. Why is this? Nobody can say for sure, but I bet that the fact that you will get a free house and benefits if you DON'T study hard, is not much of an incentive.
(I'm not sure why you think 's' is being racist. Mentioning the private education doesn't perhaps help his case, but otherwise clearly many many first-generation immigrants lead their children to amazing success in what is a country of great opportunity (how hard would it be to get into a decent university in China? We don't know how good we've got it. 3 failed A Levels and you can go have and do meeja studies for a few years.). I'm not sure his background, but clearly he worked for his kids' success, and I'm sure all the many Asian doctors you must encounter had similar support)
jayann,
"Kings don't simply take people with three Cs, they interview and they test. That way they can pick up the people who could do better than 3 Cs with better teaching. Whether they are actually doing that is of course another matter."
Getting better than a C at A Level is not exactly brain surgery. In fact that is the problem. They will be doing brain surgery afterwards.
I'd be afraid.
These children have had 18 years to get motivated and achieve something. If they really want it, and they are bright, they will get the A Level results. I didn't even have a teacher for my Further Maths A level, and I got an A.
Instead of saying "never mind the last 18 years of not working hard enough", here have another chance, do something about the fact that they and their parents in far too many cases don't give a shit.
Why should they be given such a ridiculous level of hand-holding?
What they need is motivation to work harder, not less hard. It shouldn't be: 'don't worry kid, you can get three mediocre A Levels, and then we'll spend a fortune training you up.'
Do you think they would put up with that in India or China?
I don't.
Give them a kick up the backside, not a pat on the back.
John "I think it is wrong that a small number of children from poor backgrounds should be pulled out and fast tracked through the system. This is tokenism. It stinks."
And I agree, whether they are of minority orgin or white.
John "ALL children in this country deserve a decent education."
Again, I totally agree, so, where is the problem?!
And the reason I said you shouldn't play the race card is this:
"Robert is a patient of mine. He is 19 now. He failed to get into medical school last year. He does not belong to any modern “right-on” minority. He is white and heterosexual. He does not have dyslexia, tracking disorders or ADHD. He probably puts C of E on forms that ask about religion."
Because since you believe ALL children should get a good eduction, name, race, religion should not matter, right?
And, I do like your blog John, depite it being male, hetrosexual, white and of whatever religious belief or the lack of same. And, if it is now a sin to work hard all your life to educate your children privately, then I am a sinner of the highest calibre .... and VERY proud too!
Of course it is 'your' blog so please feel free to remove my comments if they offend you that much.
Best regards
S ... for Suger :-)
Jaynn,
Actually i have the feeling it is due to discrimination (though not overt).
When medical school interviews started to be by sociologists i thinbk things changed.
I have been surprised by some of the well straightforward abuse of the medical profession by a group of these people. I can honestly say they have quite bias views against a) males at medical school and) the middle classes in general.
Sorry Jayann but what about those who went to crap schools and got 3 A's? Unlikley to get into medicine, by this thiking they should get more weight to the application.
Sorry but those who do well in crap schools (and there are enough out there to more than make up for the shortfall in state school applications) should be sought out and encouraged to apply.
John - have you asked the university how the results of these students compare to the "normals", or indeed the fast-track students (who as a group are overwhelmingly and slightly embarrassingly white, male and Oxbridge?). As a King's student my impression is that their results are as good as the regular students by the final year.
One of the few things I think King's is good at *is* widening access, and the guy who I believe runs the scheme (John Rees) is a fantastic guy who wouldn't let people into the school if they weren't up to the job.
So I really, really think you've got this scheme wrong - what KCL is doing is making the group of doctors it produces more representative of the population it serves, and it's doing so not by dumbing down but by enabling kids who haven't had the chances of the white middle-class to serve their communities.
If you think that's wrong, perhaps you'd have been happy sending your kids to a south-east london state school...? See my point?
Nick,
Is it like my medical degree where the final year was a pass/ fail?
Do you get a breakdown of your results so you can compare the students?
All we know is that there is a normal curve and if you above the cut off you pass.
What is so wrong with letting others who get to the table the unconventional way have a bite at the cherry? I am an NHS doctor (final year Medical SpR) and I have worked with many doctors who get straight As at A levels / GCES, who gained entry to medical school the conventional way, whom I would not want to be treated by should I ever fall ill.
Is that because they are thick or because you don't like them?
As for having a bite of the cherry, if you struggle before medical school without extra support you may well struggle after. With jobs becoming more competative i wonder if they will be the first to fall by the wayside in the future effectivley making them a good short term prospect but ending up without jobs a few years later.
Will be interesting to find out.
Personally i think all medicine should be graduate entry and have written about such.
I wonder how many grads end up with a 2:1 or first (what you generally need to get in to grad entry medicine).
Would this even up the problems with social class or make it worse do you think?
Matthew: "The problem is that too many parents do not care enough about their children's education. Why is this? Nobody can say for sure"
There is an Arabic proverb that says:
'A mother is an educational establishment, if you prepare her well, you prepare a whole people with good solid values.'
My own translation so I hope you get the meaning :-)
.. And good morning John ..
I think you will find that the study showed by the end of the course the outcomes for both groups were pretty evenly matched.
Dr C, A-level results do not completely correlate with ones ability to do well at medical school (especially with the current cirricula which focuses on self-directed learning. altho achieving CCC is inadequate what about ABB?). To continue the sports analogy; it would be like selecting your 11-man football team based soley on who was fastest at the 100m.
Evenly matched in what way?
The number who passed? As i said some medical schools only have a pass/ fail. With focused teaching and extra support many more people could propably pass a medical school exam.
However did the scores correlate, or did the clinical exam marks show any difference (i would be interested in that as i found the long cases to show big differences in students).
I am a third year student on a graduate entry programme.
I don't have A Levels (Just 5 GCSEs, CCBCA) I do however have a nursing degree and have flown through my exams in medical school.
As you know, many of us in medical school today would NEVER, EVER have gotten into medical school ten years.
I feel that the courses you have written about today are part of the same "widening participation" plan as the graduate courses.
Time will tell whether we (i.e people who do not have good enough A levels) will make the same calibre of doctors that traditional courses produced. I suspect we will.
Of course the offshoot of this wonderful government plan (And I am am grateful for it because it allowed me to enter medicine) is that the job planning has not kept up with all of the extra students.
When I started med school 5 years ago, in our introductory lecture we were told the univeristy had lost £x million pounds of funding because it hadn't met some target for widening participation.
Coming from a single parent, comprehensively educated background I would probably have fallen into the 'wide participation' category but I wasn't so basically, they lost money for nothing, if only they'd got their facts right.
Anyway, its not dumbing down of the entrance to medical school that you need to worry about, its teh dumbing down of medical education itself!
Evenly matched in what way?
the degree results are in the Times story linked in the post, funny pseudonym. In the clinical years pass rates are identical at 93 per cent, while
Of those who opted to do the longer BSc degree, 12 per cent got a first, 76per cent an upper second and 12 per cent a lower second, compared with 28 per cent, 65 per cent and 7 per cent among the conventional students.
"The number who passed?"
so passing a medical degree doesn't mean that much? That's not what we normally hear here.
jayann
So the conventional students trounced the extra students in the longer course.
In the current climate passing makes no difference. Your all grouped together to the bottom person who passes has the same degree as the top of the year (quartiles go some way to addressing this but the stupid form means you can be the worst in the year and still get a good mark).
but what about those who went to crap schools and got 3 A's? Unlikley to get into medicine, by this thiking they should get more weight to the application.
Someone who went to crap school and got 3 As certainly should be seen as likely to be better than someone from Winchester who got 3As. And yes they should be sought out and encouraged to apply. I'm surprised you think I think they shouldn't be.
jayann
Sad sick minion
I liked your post especially about the dignity of labour. Everyone should take a pride in what they do however menial.
However concerning your nephew studying engineering I think he is being badly advised. You are correct in saying that he will have difficulty in becoming registered with the British Engineering Council. To achieve registration in addition to his master’s he will have to work in “a responsible position” for a number of years. This is clearly going to be a problem. Ability with mathematics and understanding engineering drawings are vital to engineers, if he has problems with these he is not going to be happy in his work. However he need not give up on engineering. I have no doubt that there is work in engineering that he will shine at and enjoy. You could try contacting the appropriate engineering institution for advice.
So the conventional students trounced the extra students in the longer course.
not in a way that suggests the extra students should not be practicing medicine.
Your all grouped together to the bottom person who passes has the same degree as the top of the year
I agree. But this is because medical schools tend to stick to pass/fail, and their doing that has nothing to do with positive discrimination.
jayann
As a white working class Northern male who went to a poor-middling comprehensive and got into one of the best medical schools in the world without any help, and am now a consultant in a high profile speciality, I say:
Good on the King's lot.
Now they need to do the same to help white working class males, like myself.
The #1 problem is not schools or parents, by the way, it's peer pressure. It needs to become fashionable to do well at school and strive towards a professional career. This won't happen in the current celebrity-worshipping, anti-professional attitudes in the media UK. A good dose of recession will actually help things I think, by reasserting correct values.
With alot of friends doing the extended degree I can say that their education is definitely not dumbed down. Yes, they get some extra tutorials in the first few years, but by the start of clinics they are working with exactly the same help as the rest of us and get pretty much the same marks.
Believe it or not there are also white people doing the extended degree. It just happens that the inner-city schools (chosen for their proximity to KCL) have a large number of ethnic minorities. Therefore it makes statistical sense that more students of ethnic minority will be accepted. Clearly the university would be swamped with applications if it lowered its entrance grades to everyone from a low-achieving school, so I find it easy to understand why KCL have chosen local schools.
Unfortunately medical school application will never be fair. There must be thousands of applicants who don't get the grades but would have made fantastic doctors. I'm proud of KCLMS (or GKT as many will remember us) for at least trying to give some people with the potential to become doctors who wouldnt have got the alevel grades the chance to do so.
The problem is that there are thousands of people who did get the grades who would probably have made good doctors.
Its all a bit too PC for my taste.
As a white male from the lower social classes (first in the extended family to go to uni, parents on non-professional jobs etc) i like to think i got in to medical school on merit not because they needed to fulfil a quota.
As i said before trawl for those who either get the grades but don't get in for other reasons (put off applying, believe they can't afford it etc).
At least in the US they have scholorships (spelling?).
So if you do well they send out scouts, this could even be aimed at kids who are seen to have the potential early on. Don't focus on those who don't get the grades. Help them to either get the grades or those who have worked to achieve despite adverse circumstances.
Wouldn't it be a lot more sensible if those who have potential were helped pre-university rather than get special treatment which was not won on merit? Then by-pass those who should get in on merit?
Better pre uni education is the answer not select the few and dispose of the rest IMHO
s yes it would, but it would take a good twenty years before there were results and the peer group pressure problem might remain.
matt, I have a lot of sympathy with what you say. But there's more to 'motivation' than 'work harder'.
jayann
http://www.kentucky.com/779/story/407606.html
There you are, the USA is now thinking along the same lines
What about other medical schools who offer WAM programmes with stringent entry criteria - Soton's BM6 for example? They accept students with 3 C grades at A level as well as applicants having to meet a number of other criteria set to try and ensure applicants are only from social class III, IV or V.
The Kentucky article is interesting.
It says that 20% of the current medical school students are minorities. What proportion of the population in the state are ethnic minorities?
I know in the UK its not at 20% yet (as a rule not in specific areas).
Why do they need to bump up minority recruitment? Whjat level is acceptable? Is it when the proportion of medical students is at the same level ats the general population or some other level...
Kassie, as for the other courses i stick by what i said earlier. I don't agree with it, there are people from social class III-V out there who did do well, maybe they should be encouraged to apply to medicine.
In the end i think its a moot point, the number of medical school applications is down and medicine is now the 3rd most popular subject (very nearly fourth) behind Law and psychology.
In the future with the way things are going (reduced career security, wages, respect & oppertunities to direct your future) i think they will need to widen access to medicine as the number of traditional students applying will dwindle.
On other threads some nurses have commented on the drop in standards of nursing students due to a change in the number and type applying and i can see medicine (maybe not for a good few years yet) going the same way.
A further rationale for the "broadening access" schemes is precisely the problem of people in some social groups not aspiring to the professions because the professions are either not what they and their peers see as aspirational (see post above by Anon 1.33 pm), or simply not a realistic aspiration.
I would argue kids will aspire to two kinds of careers - first off, the fantasy ones (footballer, rapper, model, WAG), and second off, the ones they know about, this latter commonly through parents, or parents of friends, or through TV, and finally possibly through teachers.
"Role modelling" has a lot to do with this second one, but so does simply knowing that such people DO exist. If the only black doctors you will ever see in a London hospital all trained in Lagos, or have accents like Hugh Quarshie in Holby City, then you don't need to be a genius to work out that working class Afro-Caribbean Londoners are hardly likely to aspire to be doctors. This point, of course, applies equally to other under-represented groups like working class white males, though the strategies to tackle it might be different.
Has anybody ever thought that it may not actually be a good idea to encourage those from working class families to take careers in medicine? I personally know of one example who , after gaining their degree, became alienated from their families because they find it embaressing to be from either a non professional or poorer back grounds.
Then again, you do teach your children what you yourself know. Based on this, a doctor's child will automatically be expected to have a degree while a plumber's child, will be expected to aspire to similar jobs ... Nothing wrong in this because both services are needed for a good stable economy. Actually, I think it is better not to break habits because it does cause other social problems. Of course, plumbers do make more money than doctors nowadays, so, if the idea of widening access is not about equipping young people for a good money making career, what is it about then?
I am a final-year medical student at King's, and finals are starting next week. However I'm wasting reading this drivel. I got onto the course via the conventional route, and have friends who are from all 4 segments of the student population. To break down for those who are unaware, the 4 student groups are:
1) Conventional 5-yr course
2) EMDP, the 6-yr course
3) GPEP, the accelerated 4-yr course
4) FCNS (Foundation Course in Natural Sciences), another 6-yr course for those without the appropriate A-level subject but with good A-level grades, eg. A's in English, Geography, Maths and History. These students spend 1 additional year at the start doing the equivalent of A-level Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
I think the diversity at King's is great, in fact, I'm an international student from a Commonwealth country. We are going to become doctors who treat people from all ethnicities, social classes, etc. Why shouldn't we be drawn from a diverse pool of students? In fact, I frequently get taught a thing or two by my student-colleagues from the other groups, and so appreciate their presence.
What I think needs to be addressed however is the huge inadequacies in accommodating for the 400+ students in my current year-group. The facilities need to be better funded and we need more small group teaching.
If presented with 2 students both on AAB, one from a public school and another from a poor inner city comprehensive, it is not unreasonable to give greater weighting to the 2nd application. Kings College is a world class institution that wants the brightest and most motivated minds, not those that will simply rote learn whatever they are spoon fed and are unable to think for themselves. This is not some kind of nefarious "social engineering" project but is common sense in today's competitive world.
dwong - you miss out the
conventional 6 year course (i.e. the 5 year course plus a BSc).
You also miss out the transfers (mostly cambridge) who make up at least 10% of each clinical year. You've met some of them I'm sure. They are the ones that tend to kick the home grown (well GKT grown) medic's arses in the exams...
medicine is an elite profession,and thus should only be open to 1st rate candidates regardless of background.
by the way how do you think the high achievers will feel about receiving inferior tuition /provision of resources. also lets see how many of these guys make it to graduation. my guess 1%. yet another huge waste of taxpayers money. kings get your head out of your PC arse
Nowadays we crank out the doctors. How hard can it be? Can't say I've taught many brilliant doctors.
-Wrangler
The biggest problem with this is the massive amount of extra help these kids are getting at university, what a shocking two tier set up.
How will they cope when they are not wrapped in cotton wool and spoon fed?
Will they have the self motivation that others possess?
Dwong - interesting post.
I wouldn't count on more small group teaching, though. A year or two back I had an extended "discussion" at a national meeting on medical school teaching with several fairly senior King's people . Their view of the PBL small group teaching methods in use at other places was, paraphrasing slightly, that they were the Devil's work.
Garth - isn't what the students and tutors from King's are saying in the article and on this thread that the access students make just as capable doctors at the end of it, at far as anyone can tell? Based on my years teaching med students, the 18-19 yr old going in is not a terribly reliable predictor of the 23-25 yr old emerging at the other end, mainly because of the unpredictable effects of 5-6 yrs of growing up.
The cost issue of the extra help is something else. But at least then one can see it as a trade-off - how much extra funding is it worth for the social engineering, which is the question Chris McManus' BMJ editorial was posing.
"Has anybody ever thought that it may not actually be a good idea to encourage those from working class families to take careers in medicine? I personally know of one example who , after gaining their degree, became alienated from their families because they find it embaressing to be from either a non professional or poorer back grounds."
It could just as easily go the other way.
I come from a working class background. My grandparents worked in factories, my dad was a gardener before he died, my mum has just finished her teacher training; before that, she was a classroom assistant.
One thing they all have in common is how much they value education. My grandparents didn't have the opportunity to seek further education in their country of origin, but they are very smart people and always encouraged me to learn as that was the gold ticket away from a life they didn't want me to have.
I went to a comprehensive school, didn't have much help in terms of careers advice but I had my family behind me and worked bloody hard to get the grades and work experience.
I applied to 4 London medical schools and received 4 offers.
I think what someone said earlier regarding how parents value education is really important. My dad always said one of the best things you can give a child is a good education.
anonymous 10.23pm said, "you miss out the
conventional 6 year course (i.e. the 5 year course plus a BSc).
You also miss out the transfers (mostly cambridge) who make up at least 10% of each clinical year. You've met some of them I'm sure. They are the ones that tend to kick the home grown (well GKT grown) medic's arses in the exams...
I apologise for missing them out, I tend to lump this group together into the conventional 5-yr group, I intercalated a BSc myself, but I associate myself with the 5-yr lot.
I concede that the oxbridge transfers are a formidable lot, but I don't think they kick the homegrown medics' arses as you assert.
phd scientist said, "wouldn't count on more small group teaching, though. A year or two back I had an extended "discussion" at a national meeting on medical school teaching with several fairly senior King's people . Their view of the PBL small group teaching methods in use at other places was, paraphrasing slightly, that they were the Devil's work."
I didn't mean PBL sessions when I mentioned small group teaching. I meant more consultant-led tutorials, including bedside teaching and ECGs and x-rays--the old school grilling sessions that are so character building.
OK, makes sense, Dwong.
Talking of small group teaching in the clinical years, the commonest complaint we hear are "the consultant didn't show up but sent the X instead" or "nobody showed up". I make no comment, but that is what comes back to the course organisers.
Garth: you don't understand how the extended course works. These kids get *one year* of preparatory teaching which is entirely separate from the regular course. They then join the regular course in the first year - i.e. for 5 of the 6 years they are at KCL they are doing exactly the same course as everyone else, and by definition they do the same exams and are subject to the same assessment criteria as everyone else.
So to say they're "wrapped in cotton wool" is, with respect, bollocks. There's a distinct lack of cotton wool around, come to mention it.
Anonymous: you meant to say that it was the GPEP students who kick you Oxbridge transfer yokels' arses at exams.
Sigh, why all this chest-beating? I don't care who kicks whose arse... I just want to pass and be a good doctor, and save a few lives. Let's all be friends. Kumbaya.
'I went to a comprehensive school, didn't have much help in terms of careers advice but I had my family behind me and worked bloody hard to get the grades and work experience.'
Your story is different. This is hard work, determination and brilliant family support. You had to work much harder and deserve the reward. Good for you.
What we are talking about here is different, it is about 'selecting' kids to jump the queue and spoon feed them to 'force' them to cope. Hardly the same as your hard work and supporting parents. Not fair on those who were bye-passed and are more deservant or the chosen kids themselves because they do not have your will or the family support IMO
"What we are talking about here is different, it is about 'selecting' kids to jump the queue and spoon feed them to 'force' them to cope. Hardly the same as your hard work and supporting parents."
-------------------------
From what we are told of the scheme, it seems vanishingly unlikely that they would take anyone who HADN'T worked hard. That would be the kind of "attitudinal indication of potential" they would be looking for.
Isn't this really just a special form of a pre-med year, which is something that has been around for donkey's years? King's have just put on a special one for "potentials". I am glad they are doing checks to see if it seems to work, but good luck to 'em, basically.
Doc,
"Equality of outcome is an egalitarian fanatasy."
I think the very existence of the phrase "sink comprehensives", of ~20% functional illiteracy and parents cheating/lying about where they live to get their kids into good schools is all evidence that the egalitarian "fantasy" is sadly a little more of a reality, just not how they would like it.
To recount a true life story a family member got onto a foundation course for medicine (they had gone to a brilliant public school on scholarship, went from studying English and humanity subject at A-level for wanting the scientific credentials for entering medicine and so went to University for this foundation year). the top 10% of the year (about 10 students) were guaranteed a place on a medical degree at a decent university, but the scheme had been corrupted the previous year; the family member told me how...
In the previous year nearing the end of process a massive instance and plaguerism and cheating in examination was discovered - initially the individuals were reprimanded and failed outright; after an outcry from the individuals the decision was overturned; why? they belonged to an ethnic minority and threatened to brand the university with remarks about institutional racism. The dean was forced to overturn the decision, and worse, the individuals attained the necessary "qualifications" to enter medical school on one of the "hothouse" schemes.
These liers and deceivers gained through menaces what other more capable individuals (at a course who's entry each year was 90% minorities) had lost through sheer unwillingness of the authorities to brave unfounded allegations and stick to their guns.
This is dumbing down.
Ruth,
Perhaps what you say is true, but it is clearly only an arguement for harmonising a per hour rate of pay, not salaried pay as this works differently; this would also identify if your claims that men and women work similar hours is also true. As a factor in choosing workers employers have to work out how much it costs to hire any worker - many employers will try to work around it, but some, in particular SME's, cannot afford such profigacy.
Why not have an independant consortium that independantly certifies business' for their ethical, equitable treatment of minorities and gender? "Approved By The Equality Council" being a tradeable commodity, rather than a requirement.
Hi Tomrat I didn't say men and women work similar hours. Many more women than men work part-time. However, your argument was that it was fair that men should be paid more than women because they work longer hours, take more career risks, etc. My poimnt was taht much of the equal pay cases being considered at the moment do relate to men and women who work the same hours, in jobs needing similar levels of skills, etc, and where men are being paid much more than women.
If someone is working in a job with longer hours they should be paid more whether or not they are men or women.
By the way I run a business with 13staff so I do understand that SME's need to be focussed on what each worker achieves for the company against their level of remuneration. A total generalisation I know, but I tend to find women work harder and achieve more, in part I think because they are brought up to please 'authority' more.
S don't believe the hype you read in the papers about plumbers pay. I have 2 friends who have retrained as plumbers, so I do know a bit about it. The level of plumbers pay you see quoted in papers is for people who run thier own firm and employ a number of staff. Self employed plumbers do not make such large amounts unless they are basically conning vulnerable people into paying large amounts for not much work.
Plumbers like any self employed person have overhead costs that people forget about when paying for work done.
Ruth,
"If someone is working in a job with longer hours they should be paid more whether or not they are men or women."
Agreed, but I dont believe that is the driving force behind government legislation, it is merely used as a tool to get as many people to back it as possible - the real drive is to ultimately control another aspect of business' to enable some bizarre egalitarian dream. You have already pointed out that as a small business owner you find women harder workers, but if any decide to get pregnant they are entitled to maternity pay and leave which you are then forced to pay (it is a cliche', I know that women will stay at home to look after baby, but I have not known many mothers wanting/willing to do otherwise); this is an example of just one of the ancillary costs of hiring women.
the evidence that also tends to be highlighted for the gender pay gap is the difference in part-time to full-time wages - because more women tend to work part-time than men this is seen as a discriminatory; as a small business owner you will no doubt know of the additional costs to hire part-time workers - differents sets of advantages for each type of work, full or part time, aren't taken into account by government legislation, which is why someone I know has just successfully ruined an SME by claiming maternity leave from a 4-hour a week part-time job.
My (deeply libertarian) view Ruth is that you should allow business' to be as discriminating up to (but not beyond) the point of being criminally liable; it is the business' cross to bear and tends to make them less successful, which is after all the point that any government legislation should focus on when it is deciding what is best for business (which clearly it doesn't) - your actions prove that you can be self-regulating without the dead hand of politics damaging everything.
Tomrat, smaller companies such as ours can claim back 103% of statutory maternity pay. This doesn't include perks still payable on maternity leave such as pension. The biggest issue when women go on maternity leave for a small SME I have found, isn't the maternity pay, it is finding someone suitable to fill the job on a temporary basis. This is obviously easier for some posts than others.
The equal pay review being driven by Government is as a direct result of groups of workers, especially in Local Authorities, taking their employer to court and winning. Government was deeply concerned at the generous gains being awarded by the courts including substantial back pay. The wholesale review currently happening is as a result of the Government agreeing with the union not to support any equal pay court claims while the Government carries out this review.
This allows Local Authorities to reduce the pay of some staff and increase the pay of other staff to meet the equal pay legislation. Generally jobs such as bin men and street sweepers are being downgraded. If Government hadn't agreed this with the unions, they were in danger of courts continuing to award higher pay to groups of workers under equal pay legislation, without being unable to reduce the rates of pay to other staff to compensate.
What is driving the Government review of pay scales under equal pay legislation, is not some politically correct theory, but a desire to make sure that the overall wage bill doesn't go up.
Incidentally I would be seriously worried about the effectiveness of a business if it could be ruined by someone taking 4 hours a week maternity leave - given that the business could claim the money from Government. Although I know that recruiting someone suitable to a job for a few hours a week is tough.
Ruth,
The claim of 103% of maternity may sound good on paper, but remember the costs to administrate such a scheme are huge and unnecessarily invasive - what could quite easily be a gentlemans agreement between employee and employer then becomes a divisory element and shapes their thinking; given that government inefficiency at processing tax into actual work runs at historically high levels the money you get back also means that other people are included in the transaction outside of your particular business - taxpayers for example, who invariably will be unable to find less money to buy your product as a result.
The system by which the government gives us back our money in an effort to fairly distribute it is repugnant to say the least - it keeps jobsworths in positions of power and authority completely unnecessary and unwarranted and makes us all poorer.
Good article.Especially the language.We end up with a justice system again, where many innocent people are locked up again on the basis of an anonymous witness who may have a grudge financial interest etc in cooperating with the Police or whoever wants the defendant put away.
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Dr John,
You raise some interesting points in your post on the emdp at Kings. Unfortunately, you miss, almost completely, the point of the programme or the reality to where the kids on the programme come from or what they do to get there.
1. The offer is normally 3Cs - the grades attained around 3Bs on average. (Not all that different to the normal 2As 1B entry).
2. Apart from the grades attained the students do everything that 'normal' applicants do - UKCAT and interview.
3. In addition a further aptitude test was used to identify those with the necessary potential.
4. Where, in any walk of life, can you point to the young adult of 17/18 and show me the individual they will become? The notion that just because you didn't get 3As when you were 18 you cannot be a good doctor is absurd.
5. The only positive discrimination involved is that the programme is only open to those schooled and resident in the boroughs served by the hospitals. This underpins the whole notion of the course as bringing into medicine suitably competent individuals from the people that use the hospitals to be their doctors.
6. The racial mix of the intake is NOT RELEVANT. It is a measure of the racial mix of inner London - NOTHING ELSE. To suggest so is both offensive and incorrect.
7. The emdp students participate in all the same exams, tutorials etc. as the 5yr programme. They regularly attain high marks.
8. The Kings medical students have voted an emdp students as the medical student rep, and vice rep and a majority of the medical school student council - this shows what they majority of Kings medical students think of the quality and integrity of the emdp students.
9. You are spot on about improving the quality of state education. Let's start by funding it like private schools - so instead of 4k per pupil a year in the state sector let's boost it to a private school comparable 10k a year. Presumably, when your tax bill goes up you will fill your blog column with complaints about that?
Your comments are wrong. Your viewpoint adheres to the old-boy, old-school-tie, children-of-medics-first attitudes that filled (and still do) our medical schools with arrogant, intellectually stunted, exam-passing, boorish prigs that treated patients as an inconvenient distration from their course to private medicine and golf at the weekend.
If widening participation, and it's attendant change in A level grade expectations, changes that then about bloody time.
Hi there, I find this somewhat amusing. Firstly lets just say that not all the information has been laid on the table. The EMDP programme is aimed at students who do not achieve the required grades; correct but most of the intakes normally get above CCC. A friend of mine got in this year with AAAAB at A-levels and so I don't believe that the standards are relatively very low. However, another friend in the same class with us got in with BBCC at A-levels. At first glance you would immediately presume that he (BBCC guy) is going to be at a disadvantage. In our class I would openly admit that the guy with BBCC seemed to be the top student and whatever happened at his A-levels I don't know since he used to teach the other students as well. Quite fraknly I do not find it surprising that now they are both on the same field and taking exams where understanding the course takes priority over passing the course, the BBCC student is excelling whilst the AAAAB student can't cope since the multiple choice style exams at med school requires complete understanding most of the times (answers are too close) and so cramming in the work (as the AAAAB student did at A-level) is not getting him through. By the way the student with BBCC is a white kid whilst the student with AAAAB is an asian kid. I do not think race has anything to do with this, I just think that as Dr C. had pointed out, it would have been a much more successful and socially justified course to have allowed all students in all areas to apply. That way students who unleash their academic potential at a later stage than others still get a chance to achieve their dream. Also I think these students should be given some credit for what they are doing; afterall they pay for the tuition fees, go through all the struggles like any other medical students (as they take the same exams and have the same mandatory pass grades even though they have more help). About the help, from what I can tell from the information I have read, Oxford university has similar tutorials and support for their students. They provide more support due to the increase scientific content of the course but the point to note is that by providing more support, the students are able to keep up and generally do well.
All to consider I think the EMDP students will do well as they will have to be smart enough anyway if they are to pass their course and if you are someone who would ask you doctor what they got in the A-levels before you allow he/she to treat you then you seriously have too much time on your hand thinking up such rubbish.
Thanks for reading (sorry I went on and on. I will take time to structure it well next time)
I have read all these comments and find that there is one thing in common amongst most entries, alot of arrogance and a lack of ability
to understand why some people need
support other than themselves! I,
for one have never been impressed by medical professionals, they are
full of bluff and bluster, which the private and grammar schools fill their empty heads with, and
a lack of ability to communicate in a clear and helpful manner. A**
are only a minute requirement needed to be adecent human being whatever the profession.
Amelie
and look where all this 'dumbing down' has gotten King's College London:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23646805-details/Racists+ostracised+me+at+medical+school,+says+student+-+now+they+are+NHS+doctors/article.do
This is what you get for admitting students without the correct grades into a intellectually demanding course.
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