Eradicating ethnic disadvantage in medical education and regulation

The wheels of regulatory reform turn very slowly. On 18 May 2021 the UK’s General Medical Council (GMC) issued a press release setting targets to eliminate disproportionate complaints from employers about ethnic minority doctors and eradicate disadvantage and discrimination in medical education and training.1 The targets specify that the GMC will eliminate disproportionate complaints from employers about ethnic minority doctors by 2026 and eradicate disadvantage and discrimination in medical education and training by 2031.

GMC commissioned research shows that ethnic minority doctors are twice as likely as white doctors to be referred to the GMC by their employer for fitness to practise concerns and that the referral rate for doctors qualifying outside the UK is three times higher than that for UK doctors.1 In education and training, pass rates for postgraduate exams reflect a 12% difference between white and ethnic minority doctors who trained in the UK, rising to more than 30% for overseas graduates.2

Concerns about …