Does it matter that medical graduates don’t get jobs as doctors? Yes

Before last year, this question would have been seen as academic and irrelevant, more colloquially a complete “no brainer.” As a nation we invest in medical training because we want the services of doctors, not to produce management consultants or playwrights. The thousands of young people who compete fiercely for medical school places each year do so because they want to work as doctors, not gain an expensive general education. Of course not all medical graduates pursue lifelong careers in medicine. Doctors have always made high profile contributions in other fields—Jonathan Miller and David Owen are good contemporary examples in the United Kingdom. But the cohort studies of the UK Medical Careers Research Group clearly show that more than 95% work in medicine in the long term, though not necessarily in the UK or the NHS (M …