Medical professionalism: more than fitness to practise

The General Medical Council (GMC) and the Medical Schools Council have produced guidance on professional behaviour for medical schools and students. The guidance focuses particularly on fitness to practise.While fitness to practise is vital for the protection of patients, we argue that it is only one aspect involved in the teaching and learning of professionalism

"Aspirations of people who come from state education are different" : how language reflects social exclusion in medical education

Our thanks to the General Medical Council (GMC) of the UK for funding the original programme of work, and the admissions staff who gave their time to be interviewed. Our thanks also to the University of Aberdeen’s College of Life Sciences and Medicine (CLSM) Ethical Research Board for granting approval for this study. Our thanks to Kirsty Alexander, University of Aberdeen, UK, and Dr Anne O’Keeffe, University of Limerick, Ireland, for their helpful reviews of the analysis process and manuscript drafts.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell Policy Strangles Research and Do-Gooder Intentions Ablaze

Nature starts the news week by chronicling epidemiological researchers’ wrath over how Britain’s General Medical Council (GMC) has implemented the nation’s 1998 Data Protection Act. Science fires up its news with coverage of the torching of two plant labs in the northwestern U.S. by ecoterrorists

Thinking of selection and widening access as complex and wicked problems

This work was unfunded but the ideas stem from numerous funded projects from over the years, particularly from the General Medical Council (GMC) and Medical Schools Council (MSC) of the UK. Our thanks also to the anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this paper for their helpful feedback.Peer reviewedPostprin

The need for aviation and space medicine in the United Kingdom Undergraduate Medical Curriculum

‘Aviation and Space Medicine’ (ASM) has recently been introduced as a General Medical Council (GMC) approved specialty in the United Kingdom. This reflects its growing importance in the public, industry and healthcare sectors. Currently, medical school involvement in ASM is minimal at best. An undergraduate medical curriculum devoid of ASM will leave medical students oblivious to both the existence and importance of this discipline. Having introduced ASM as its own distinct speciality, it is now vital to place an emphasis on ensuring current and future medical students are informed, inspired and prepared to pursue careers in this exciting, novel and unique field of medicine

Integration of computer technology into the medical curriculum: The King's experience

King's College London has developed a new curriculum which prepares students to deliver a high‐quality clinical service. A variety of active‐learning techniques are utilized to produce a deep approach to learning with an emphasis on vocational needs in the domains of knowledge, attitudes and skills. Integration of academic and clinical studies, as recommended by the General Medical Council (GMC), poses a number of difficulties, particularly in terms of communication between disparate geographical sites. The new curriculum aims to take advantage of computer technology to supplement and enhance traditional methods of learning and to ensure that students are competent in a defined range of skills. To aid integration, all students joining the new course are offered notebook computers and enhanced access to desktop computers, both with facilities to link to the main network This allows students to use multimedia material incorporated into the new curriculum and to access online services from remote locations. This paper reviews the integration of such computer technology into the new medical curriculum at King's

A "crutch to assist in gaining an honest living": Dispensary shopkeeping by Scottish general practitioners and the responses of the British medical elite, ca. 1852-1911

This article examines the practice among general practitioners in Scotland of keeping shops for dispensary and retail purposes in the late nineteenth century. It demonstrates that while doctors kept such open shops in these areas in order to subsidize their income in a crowded medical market, they argued that shopkeeping allowed them to provide medical care in communities where the population was otherwise too poor to pay for such care. The article compares shopkeeping to medical "covering" and assesses the medical hierarchy's reactions to shopkeeping doctors via disciplinary actions taken against some of these doctors by the General Medical Council (GMC). These actions provoked an organized protest among hundreds of doctors (some of it channeled through the British Medical Association), which challenged the methods of the GMC in determining acceptable professional medical standards

‘It would not be tolerated in any other profession except medicine’: survey reporting on undergraduates’ exposure to bullying and harassment in their first placement year

OBJECTIVES: To determine the extent to which undergraduate medical students experience (and/or witness) bullying and harassment during their first year on full-time placements and to compare with new General Medical Council (GMC) evidence on bullying and harassment of doctors in training.SETTING: A UK university offering medical and nursing undergraduate programmes.PARTICIPANTS: 309 medical and nursing undergraduate students with 30-33?weeks' placement experience (123 medical students and 186 nursing students); overall response rate: 47%.PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: (A) students' experience of bullying and harassment; (B) witnessing bullying and harassment; (C) actions taken by students; (D) comparison of medical and nursing students' data.RESULTS: Within 8?months of starting clinical placements, a fifth of medical and a quarter of nursing students reported experiencing bullying and harassment. Cohorts differ in the type of exposure reported and in their responses. Whereas some nursing students follow incidences with query and challenge, most medical students acquiesce.CONCLUSIONS: Bullying and harassment of medical (and nursing) students-as well as witnessing of such incidents-occurs as soon as students enter the clinical environment. This augments evidence published by the GMC in its first report on undermining of doctors in training (December 2013). The data suggest differences between nursing and medical students in how they respond to such incidents.<br/

Doctors who pilot the GMC's Tests of Competence: who volunteers and why?

Background: Doctors who are investigated by the General Medical Council (GMC) for performance concerns may be required to take a Test of Competence (ToC). The tests are piloted on volunteer doctors before they are used in Fitness to Practise (FtP) investigations. Objectives: To find out who volunteers to take a pilot ToC and why. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study. Between February 2011 and October 2012 we asked doctors who volunteered for a test to complete a questionnaire about their reasons for volunteering and recruitment. We analysed the data using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s chi-square test. Results: 301 doctors completed the questionnaire. Doctors who took a ToC voluntarily were mostly women, of white ethnicity, of junior grades, working in general practice and who held a Primary Medical Qualification from the UK. This was a different population to doctors under investigation and all registered doctors in the UK. Most volunteers heard about the GMC’s pilot events through email from a colleague and used the experience to gain exam practice for forthcoming postgraduate exams. Conclusions: The reference group of volunteers are not representative of doctors under FtP investigation. Our findings will be used to inform future recruitment strategies with the aim to encourage better matching of groups who voluntarily pilot a ToC with those under FtP investigation

Prevalence, Nature, Severity and Risk Factors for Prescribing Errors in Hospital Inpatients : Prospective Study in 20 UK Hospitals

Funding This study was funded by the General Medical Council (GMC). The study funders had no role in the study design, in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, in the writing of this manuscript or in the decision to submit the article for publication. Acknowledgements The EQUIP team would like to thank the following people: Members of the Expert Reference Group (Graham Buckley, Gary Cook, Dianne Parker, Lesley Pugsley and Mike Scott); Members of the Error Validation Group (Lindsay Harper, Katy Mellor, Steven Williams, Keith Harkins, Steve McGlynn, Ray George, Tim Dornan, Penny Lewis); Tribal Consulting Ltd. (Heather Heathfield, Emma Carter) for database design; Study co-ordinators at hospitals (Linda Aldred, Deborah Armstrong, Isam Badhawi, Kathryn Ball, Neil Caldwell, Vanya Fidling, Nicholas Fong, Heather Ford, Andrea Gill, Lindsay Harper, Jean Holmes, Sally James, Christopher Poole, Sally Shaw, Heather Smith, Julie Street, Atia Rifat, David Thornton, Tracey Thornton, Jane Warren, Steven Williams), and all pharmacists at the study sites who collected data for this study.Peer reviewedPublisher PD