Medical academics reject plans to move GMC registration to time of graduation

Medical academics have strongly opposed plans to move the point of registration with the General Medical Council to graduation from medical school.

The plans were first proposed by the UK wide Shape of Training review, led by David Greenaway, vice chancellor of Nottingham University, and have been supported by Health Education England.1

Delegates at the BMA’s conference of medical academic representatives in London last week supported a motion that “strongly” opposed the move. The motion warned that the change “removes the opportunity to monitor the clinical work of the newly qualified; it will remove the pressure to provide a foundation post for every graduate and may lead to UK medical graduate unemployment.”

Carmen Soto, an out of programme researcher in paediatrics at the University of Leicester, said that the plan raised concern, primarily over the safety of patients, among several different groups of doctors.“I have to say when I first heard this I thought maybe it’s not such a big deal. But the more I thought about it the more worried I became. Practising in hospital for that first year is a very different environment to being a medical student, and I feel . . . that it is a very important time of transition, from being a fully supervised student [to having] the responsibility of being a fully registered practitioner. And that year of transition is very important.”

Colin MacDougall, principal teaching fellow in paediatrics and medical education at the University of Warwick, presented a related motion that was passed unanimously. It warned that graduate entry medical (GEM) programmes would be adversely affected by the changes. The motion said, “Registration at the point of graduation results in four year accelerated GEM courses being too short under European law and the absence of a parallel five year course makes accreditation of prior learning very challenging.” MacDougall said, “I’m simply asking that the issue of these particular schools is brought to the attention in the appropriate discussions in which the BMA is involved.”

Mark Gabbay, professor of primary care and health service research at the University of Liverpool, also spoke against the change. He warned, “This poorly thought out solution to a problem that wasn’t [one] could potentially wipe out the opportunity for all those graduate students to go to medical school.”