Rapid responses are electronic comments to the editor. They enable our users
to debate issues raised in articles published on bmj.com. A rapid response
is first posted online. If you need the URL (web address) of an individual
response, simply click on the response headline and copy the URL from the
browser window. A proportion of responses will, after editing, be published
online and in the print journal as letters, which are indexed in PubMed.
Rapid responses are not indexed in PubMed and they are not journal articles.
The BMJ reserves the right to remove responses which are being
wilfully misrepresented as published articles or when it is brought to our
attention that a response spreads misinformation.
From March 2022, the word limit for rapid responses will be 600 words not
including references and author details. We will no longer post responses
that exceed this limit.
The word limit for letters selected from posted responses remains 300 words.
Whilst I was interested to read the paper titled increasing the
number of medical students from under-represented minorities1, finding it
a novel way of this tackling this problem in medicine, I was concerned
about the one major omission throughout the paper; money.
Given the present climate and costs for students of medicine it seems a
little short sighted to prepare people for medical school only to have
their hopes dashed by the reality of the cost of this education. Whilst
there are obviously incentives involved to help people whose families
cannot afford to pay for their child to go to university, these will not
cover all costs. A grant is available to children of families earning
under £17,500. This is for £2,700 pounds. Tuition fees are exempt if your
family earns under £21,500. However, the costs involved in studying
medicine are high. If students study away from home the cost of the
cheapest self-catering accommodation could be as much as £2,910 for one
year (using the University of Birmingham as an example). This leads to the
need for the use of a student loan, not a very appealing proposition.
Given that only recently the BMA announced that medical student debt has
reached highs of £20,172 for final years, there has been added worry over
unemployment for junior doctors and redundancies for senior doctors, there
is concern of not only excessive debt but not being able to pay it off at
the end.
I feel that this form of getting people from deprived socio-economic
classes into medicine is a good idea, but ideas need to be put in to
context and therefore there needs to be more thought on how to fund people
from deprived socio-economic groups for medicine degrees.
Carr & Edelin are surely right in suggesting that the programme
trialled by Greenhalgh et al to encourage 16-year-olds from deprived socio
-economic backgrounds to enter medical school should be replicated
elsewhere.
But it will also be necessary to provide support to help those
students cope with the social and financial stresses that they are likely
to face, particularly in their early years, as medical students.
Eight years' experience with a trust which helps medical students
from low income backgrounds has opened my eyes to the level of financial
hardship under which many such students struggle in a user-pays
educational environment. I suspect that I am not privy to the social
stresses that, even in a supposedly egalitarian country like New Zealand,
are likely also to affect them.
Competing interests:
AEJ Fitchett is a trustee of a trust which assists medical students from low-income backgrounds
Competing interests:
No competing interests
01 April 2006
Anthony EJ Fitchett
General Practitioner
Mornington Health Centre, 169 Eglinton Road, Dunedin, 9001, New Zealand
Increasing the number of medical students from under-represented minorities – don’t forget the cost of university.
Whilst I was interested to read the paper titled increasing the
number of medical students from under-represented minorities1, finding it
a novel way of this tackling this problem in medicine, I was concerned
about the one major omission throughout the paper; money.
Given the present climate and costs for students of medicine it seems a
little short sighted to prepare people for medical school only to have
their hopes dashed by the reality of the cost of this education. Whilst
there are obviously incentives involved to help people whose families
cannot afford to pay for their child to go to university, these will not
cover all costs. A grant is available to children of families earning
under £17,500. This is for £2,700 pounds. Tuition fees are exempt if your
family earns under £21,500. However, the costs involved in studying
medicine are high. If students study away from home the cost of the
cheapest self-catering accommodation could be as much as £2,910 for one
year (using the University of Birmingham as an example). This leads to the
need for the use of a student loan, not a very appealing proposition.
Given that only recently the BMA announced that medical student debt has
reached highs of £20,172 for final years, there has been added worry over
unemployment for junior doctors and redundancies for senior doctors, there
is concern of not only excessive debt but not being able to pay it off at
the end.
I feel that this form of getting people from deprived socio-economic
classes into medicine is a good idea, but ideas need to be put in to
context and therefore there needs to be more thought on how to fund people
from deprived socio-economic groups for medicine degrees.
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests