Widening access to medical school: Dick Whittington Summer School

Abstract

Initiatives in the USA aimed at widening access to medical education for students from non-traditional backgrounds failed to meet long-term targets despite impressive short-term successes. 3 These initiatives were based on a 'knowledge deficit' model, where students were seen as needing an additional input of factual knowledge. Contemporary research in the UK, however, resulted in a different conclusion. A recent London-based focus-group study of 68 academically able 14-16-year-oLd pupils, from a wide range of social and ethnic backgrounds, found striking differences in responses related to socioeconomic status. 4 Pupils from lower socioeconomic backgrounds saw medical school as being culturally alien and for 'posh' students, and regarded a career in medicine as having extrinsic rewards (money) but requiring prohibitive personal sacrifices. This is an echo of results from previous sociological research. An interview study of 15-year-old 'working-class' boys from diverse ethnic backgrounds in inner London, published in the year 2000, demonstrated a strong attachment to peer group and local'turf, with constructed 'rough' identities being used effectively as barriers to getting 'posh' jobs or on to courses. 5 Bourdieu views university attendance as being part of the normal middle-class life narrative,6'7 congruent with family and peer values. However, the choice of non-compulsory education for working- class pupils has been described as being more limited: often at variance with personal and cultural identity, and associated with financial risk and separation from a valued local peer group. 8 We used this research base to design our two initiatives on widening access.