BMA seek pooled job applications for students

The British Medical Association (BMA) Medical Students Committee have called for a centralised body, through which graduates can apply for their first job.

In a new paper, 'Applications to Foundation Programmes', the Committee proposed a model, similar to the university applications system, UCAS, for applying to the new Modernising Medical Careers Foundation. This would enable final medical year UK students to apply through a central board to a maximum of 20 or 30 programmes anywhere in the country.

The Committee also suggested that no more than half of a student's application could be within the same deanery (bodies that oversee local training of doctors) except for the applicant's home deanery. The Committee says that this would enable the majority of students to take up a job near their medical school, while still making provisions for students who wished to move to a different part of the country.

The new process would be based on a points system, with local deaneries giving differential weightings to exam results, relevant experience and other factors. Alterations to weightings would be published on a central website. The Committee stated that this would make the whole process easier to follow and more transparent.

Leigh Bissett, Chairman of the BMA's Medical Students Committee said: "The current system is unwieldy, discriminatory, and often results in doctors accepting the first post offered rather than the one most appropriate to their career, and the NHS as a whole. What we are proposing would make the application process less bureaucratic and easier to understand while reducing bias, increasing geographic flexibility and catering to the needs of the health service and the patients who use it."

The Medical Students Committee's paper follows a survey by the Royal College of Physicians (RCS), which found that a large number of junior overseas doctors were coming to the UK and were unable to find jobs.

The RSC said that this was partly due to the lack of a system to match graduates to vacancies, as well as a lack of information on the current UK job market for those seeking to come to Britain to work.

A central clearing house to which international graduates could apply, before leaving their posts at home, could help to solve the problem, suggests the RSC.

(KMcA/SP)