Senior clinicians have expressed concerns that the online selection process for student doctors looking for their first placement is not sufficiently robust, with personal statements being left unchecked and academic qualifications only a fraction of the final assessment.
The Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) website came under fire in a letter signed by 84 medical professors, surgeons and academic luminaries in a letter to the Times newspaper on Saturday, who called it "a process that has been implemented without adequate consultation and without regard to pleas from the medical profession to continue interviews to select candidates for medical training."
The form, which medical students looking for their first placements fill in after completing their five-year medical course, consists of six fields, in which applicants have to outline examples of teamwork, leadership, compliance with guidelines and reasons for applying to a particular post, as well as outlining their academic achievements.
Kirsty Lloyd, head of the BMA medical students’ committee, told E-Health Insider she was ‘outraged’ that final year students were experiencing so much uncertainty about the new process. However, she said the student committee believed the principles behind the new system but did not believe that the process this year, and its implementation, was beyond criticism.
"This is an anonymous application system. It enables students to demonstrate their academic success along with the wide range of attributes they develop at medical school. This, in principle, is a meritocractic way of allocating places that ensures that all students have an equal and fair chance.
"There has , however, been unanimous agreement , as a result of this year’s system, that the weighting of academic success be increased in the future. There has been a series of problems that are unacceptable. These problems however, do not indicate that the entire system is flawed. "
Lloyd said claims that the form was not checked were, in her experience, incorrect. "My understanding is that every student has to supply e-mail addresses for two referrals. They are given access to the application form. There’s a referee checking verification system and we know that the audit is actually happening."
Charles McCollum, professor of surgery at South Manchester University Hospital and author of the letter, told the Times that he believed the process was inherently unfair: "It’s driving us spare. We have high-flyers who will make excellent surgeons who have been rated as failures by this process, despite being excellent students. They are desperate."
Sir Nicholas Wright, warden of St Bartholomew’s and The London School of Medicine, condemned the online form and called on those responsible for it to resign.
The Times says that in a letter to the chairman of the Conference of Postgraduate Medical Deans, Sir Nicholas wrote: "I, and I am sure, a considerable number of heads of medical schools in this country, to say nothing of the students, have lost faith in the people and the system that has introduced such an appalling instrument. If I were in that position I would indeed resign."
Around 6,000 applications were made through the form in August. One new aspect of the system is that it allows applicants to offer a preference as to where they would like their foundation training.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health told BBC News Online that students who did not receive placements in this instance would "undoubtedly get jobs in the next round".
The controversy comes after reports last month that the Multi-Deanery Application Process website, another new site that matches junior doctors to posts, was overwhelmed by traffic and was experiencing delays in delivering results.
Links