RUMS News -

Hi everyone,

I'd like to bring your attention to the proposed changes the UKFPO and Department of Health are proposing to the way we apply to Foundation Schools in the upcoming sessions.

As you will currently know, the system currently uses an online application form, combining your quartile rankings with the points you get for answering a number of white space questions and gives you a mark out of 100, with those with the most points applying to each foundation school getting offers of places.

The Department of Health has called time on this system due to a number of problems and is therefore currently looking for a fair, transparent and legally defensible replacement application system. One of the main issues is the prediction of an end to guaranteed foundation school jobs and unemployment for medical graduates.

A number of options discussed include:
Interviews - now no longer on the table
Multiple Mini Interviews - An OSCE type set up, with multiple mini interviews with the same sorts of questions white spaces used to have
Portfolios - unsure of their form yet
National Assessment - One exam sat on one day by all applicants, with your grade determining your job.

Discussions are currently ongoing but decisions will be made son so pilots can be rolled out for the 2010 graduates - likely to include a london school - and fully implemented for the 2011 graduates. Medical students are represented at most levels of discussion through the medical school reps and Student BMA reps.

Although no system is perfect, the BMA and the ULU Medgroup, a collective of London Medical School student reps, have all highlighted a National Assessment as a particularly worrying move for a number of reasons, and a letter has therefore been sent to those debating the changes on behalf of the London Medical Students highlighting the concerns raised by the reps during lengthy discussions, as well as by students that attended focus groups at each medical school.

These concerns included:
- Logistical difficulties. Timing of the exam hasn't been decided but is likely to fall towards the end of the penultimate year/ beginning of final year. If a student should be on their elective or distant site they would be expected to pay for their travel to return to sit the exam.

- Unfairly advantaging certain medical schools. Although UCL sit their finals at the end of our final year, a number of medical schools sit theirs at the end of their penultimate year. They will therefore be in a better position to sit an exam based upon the entire medical school curriculum while our students will have just come back from speciality training

- Type of questions. The types of questions used by medical schools across the country varies widely and a national exam based on one format would unfairly advantage those used to that particular question style.

- Increased pressure on students. The exam would undoubtedly fall during normal training time and the increased pressure on students combined with pressure to study and potentially miss out on important clinical training would be detrimental to the overall training of the medical student, impacting negatively on the competence of doctors produced by the system.

- Pressure towards a national curriculum for Medical Schools. The strength of medical schools like in their diversity and self-determinism. Our curriculum is dynamic and contributed to by a number of staff and students over a number of years. By enforcing a national exam schools would struggle to produce good doctors capable of passing their own exams as well as good grades in a national exam.

The application system has been problematic for a number of years and representatives are trying to avert another disaster for students, we feel a National exam being the worst case scenario.

Should you have any concerns or queries feel free to contact me on amanda.smith@ucl.ac.uk

The foundation application system is run by the UKFPO, whose website is: http://www.foundationprogramme.nhs.uk/pages/home

Thanks

Mandy