theMEDICALSTUDENT
December 2014
The voice of London's Medical Students/www.themedicalstudent.co.uk
Another Jeremy Hunt Gaff?
World Aids Day
What has he done this time? - page 4 We chat with a Patient- page 6
War and Peace
Modern world isn’t peaceful - page 8
Who Rowed to Victory?
Reports on UH Rowing - page 18
Will you be Prepared? Krishna Dayalji News Editor
According to a recent report published by the General Medical Council (GMC), which included data from the 2014 National Training Survey (which is compulsory for all doctors in training to complete), the Foundation year doctors of today believed they are ‘better prepared’ than previous cohorts. So you’re an ‘off-the-shelf’ medical student and you’re reading this newspaper because your smart phone has run of battery and you need to be entertained whilst eating your lunch. So whilst you have nothing better to do, imagine yourself on the first day of your new posting as a foundation doctor. Do you feel prepared for your first post? Do you feel the skills you have gained from medical school set up for the job? You would hope so right! But correct me if I’m wrong, the entire task seems extremely daunting! In the survey, the percentage of those disagreeing with the statement, “Do you feel that you were adequately prepared for your first foundation post?” fell from 34% in 2009 to 24% in 2011. Following a modification of the question,the 2014 survey found that 70% of doctors either agreed or strongly agreed to a different statement of “I was prepared for my first foundation post”, and with 75% of doctors either agreeing/strongly agreeing with the statement: “The skills I learned at medical school set me up well for working as a foundation doctor.” Whether this change in perception of preparedness has
risen as a result of the change in question is difficult to ascertain, however the report believes that this rise may be a direct result of the introduction of the revised version of Tomorrow’s Doctors in 2009, which is ‘substantially different from its predecessor, setting out clear competences required of medical school graduates and introducing student assistantships’. Why is this important to me I hear you ask? Well, how well
you are prepared for that first posting is a good reflection of how well medical schools are training up their medical graduates. Despite the considerable variation in the way all 33 medical schools assessed students’ progress, the review showed that they were all delivering assessments in line with the standards set out in ‘Tomorrow’s Doctors’. Yet, self-perceptions of preparedness varied across medi-
cal schools. The proportion of graduates who felt adequately prepared varied from 60% to 85%, with 60-70% of graduates feeling prepared for 17 medical schools. Interestingly, ranking the highest in preparedness and skill set was University of East Anglia (85% and 97% respectively), in comparison to University of Cambridge (60% and 62%, respectively), which ranked the lowest. This may also reflect the
wide variations across medical schools in what specialty their graduates train after they complete their foundation training. For example, Oxford and Cambridge medical students have a higher proportion of graduates becoming physicians or surgeons, whereas other schools produce a higher percentage of GPs. And additionally, despite the fall in the percentage that felt they were forced to cope with clinical problems beyond their competence/experience from 51% in 2009 to 31% in 2014, the percentage remains high. The report attributed this to the inevitability of F1 doctors having to deal with the unexpected, and went further to describe it as a ‘valuable learning experience’ following a good followup and debrief. Nevertheless, it does reflect a reduction in the risk posed to patients. And of more concern to us further down the line in our medical careers, weaker evidence found that those who felt less prepared for their first posting were more likely to receive unsatisfactory outcomes in their Annual Review of Competence Progression (all doctors in training need at least one a year to ensure they are making progress as they should). But the true assessment of how well foundation doctors are at their jobs will be in finding out what other members of the multi-disciplinary team feel about the competences and preparedness of their junior doctors. As one can imagine this may also vary between trusts and individuals, some of who [Continued on page 2]