Rapid Responses to:

ANALYSIS: Pamela B Garlick and Gavin Brown Widening participation in medicine BMJ 2008; 336: 1111-1113 [Full text]

Rapid Responses: Submit a response to this article

Rapid Responses published:

Is the EMDP misguided?

Charles W Redman, DE6 6QG   (17 May 2008)

Widening participation in medicine - the flip side

Timothy R Dabbs   (19 May 2008)

Is the EMDP misguided? 17 May 2008
Charles W Redman, Consultant Gynaecologist University Hospital of North Staffordshire, DE6 6QG Send response to journal: Re: Is the EMDP misguided?	If 'tomorrow's doctors should reflect the social and ethnic diverstiy' of our country, why is the high proportion (91%) of ethnic minorities amongst EMDP students applauded when the majority of conventional students (51%) are from this group anyway? Perhaps we need a selection policy to ensure that the ethnic mix of our doctors refects the composition of our society? Competing interests: None declared
Widening participation in medicine - the flip side 19 May 2008
Timothy R Dabbs, Consultant Ophthalmologist Leeds THT Send response to journal: Re: Widening participation in medicine - the flip side	As the father of an 18 year old daughter applying for medicine I was interested to learn of the provisions being made to allow students with low academic achievements(perceived to be due to their misfortune in attending certain state schools) into medical school. My daughter is, like the students cited in the Kings College initiative utterly motivated ,has fulfilled all the usual entrance criteria, is acknowledged by teachers(state school) and friends alike to be an ideal doctor in the making,worked tirelessly, of her own volition towards achieving her goal but unlike them she has obtained the required GCSE and A level grades yet seemed unable to obtain a place at Medical school at her first attempt. As a family we were distraught. I then learned of 5 medical colleagues experiencing the same problems all with children with apparently exemplary school records and extra curricular achievements. Having known personally many of my daughters' similarly qualified classmates who were successful in their attempts and the quality of newly qualified doctors in my 28 year career, I was struggling to find an explanation for her failure to find a place. I strongly suspect that she was the victim of negative discrimination. The King College initiative is one physical embodiment of this. Knowing that Kings (to whom my daughter applied) allow in students with A Levels as low as CDE is, if you are in the maelstrom of medical school application, frankly appalling. How was I to counsel my daughter on her shattered dreams? After all she had the misfortune to have a doctor as a father, a family who had striven to give her a good stable home and had come from a good state school! Remember, that for every student given an unfair advantage there will be another who will be unfairly disadvantaged for which there may be no redress . Experiencing this is most corrosive, it has caused me to question the value of all I have done to give my children the opportunity to fulfill their ambitions and question the twisted logic of a society that has created this grotesque example of political correctness. I can only echo Prof McManus who states "we cannot afford to be complacent about injustice" its effects can be devastating and create outcomes never invisiged by those who generate it deliberately to achieve their aims, no matter how superficially laudable they may be. Competing interests: None declared