Doctors from underprivileged backgrounds are poorly represented in medicine

Abstract

Doctors from underprivileged backgrounds are poorly represented in medicine, the General Medical Council has concluded after asking doctors in training about their social backgrounds. A third of doctors in training have been privately educated, and only one in 20 doctors in training grew up in the UK’s most deprived areas, show data from the GMC’s national training survey.1 The findings add to the growing evidence that social inequalities persist in the profile of those gaining access to a career in medicine. Figures from the Higher Education Statistics Authority indicate that the social profile of medical students …