Medicine continues to be a closed shop to students from low income families, a BMA report finds.
The study, called Equality and diversity in UK medical schools, reveals that only one in seven successful applicants are from the lowest economic groups, despite them making up nearly half of the UK population.
In the past five years, there has been an increase of just 1.7% in students coming from low income backgrounds, despite £392 million being poured into widening access schemes across the higher education system since 2001.
Professor Bhupinder Sandhu, chair of the BMA’s equal opportunity committee, said: “Medical schools are still not recruiting enough students from low income backgrounds. There is evidence of a drastic gap in acceptance rates. Fifty eight per cent of applicants from the top socio-economic group obtained a place at medical school, but only 39% of applicants from the lowest group were successful - a gap of 19%.
“A combination of complex problems lies at the heart of this failure. There are clear underlying issues within education at school level, not just in the poor academic performance amongst low income students, but also in low aspirations, with many seemingly feeling a career in medicine is simply unattainable.”
The report finds, however, that medicine does attract a higher proportion of ethnic minority students when compared to the general university population, although there are large differences in acceptance rates between different ethnic groups. And women made up 56% of all accepted applicants to UK medical schools.
The study analysed the latest figures from 2008 on successful applications to UK medical schools from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service.
Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the BMA, is concerned that lower income applicants could be further deterred by mounting levels of student debt, which are set to hit £37,000 for medical students.
She said: “The chancellor’s recent announcement of a scheme aimed at helping low income students gain exposure of medicine may help to address the fact that many do not feel a medical career is a possible career option.
“But this will not in itself solve this problem. The government must look at the cost of the medical degree and how we address the failings in our school system.”
Read the full report.
Read a blog on the issue.
Tags: Equality, Medical students, Recruitment
