Nationally assessed

Having recently completed my final examinations, I feel thoroughly and rigorously assessed. I face continuous assessment within the Foundation Programmes and ever after until retirement. I may well, in fact, be assessed “from cradle to grave.” And yet an apparent lack of consistency between the assessment methods used at different medical schools has led to calls for a further national assessment process.

UK medical schools vary enormously in their teaching methods and assessments. Their curriculums and assessments must be developed in accordance with the GMC's document Tomorrow's Doctors,1 and some consistency in standards is ensured by the Quality Assurance of Basic Medical Education (QABME) as well as the system of external examiners. Within this loose framework, however, very differing styles of teaching and assessment have developed.2

Diversity and innovation are key attributes of the current system of UK medical student assessment. Content and style of assessment drives learning,3 and so a variation in assessments allows valuable variety in teaching methods.

Suggestions of national assessment risk stifling this diversity of, and innovation in, undergraduate medical education. National assessment risks dictating the direction of teaching and course structure. It could also be vulnerable to the influence of short term political agendas and public pressure groups, unbalancing the content of examination or curriculum and in turn skewing undergraduate teaching.