PMID- 21343208
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20110328
LR  - 20211203
IS  - 1756-1833 (Electronic)
IS  - 0959-8138 (Print)
IS  - 0959-8138 (Linking)
VI  - 342
DP  - 2011 Feb 22
TI  - Widening access to medical education for under-represented socioeconomic groups: 
      population based cross sectional analysis of UK data, 2002-6.
PG  - d918
LID - bmj.d918 [pii]
LID - 10.1136/bmj.d918 [doi]
LID - d918
AB  - OBJECTIVE: To determine whether new programmes developed to widen access to 
      medicine in the United Kingdom have produced more diverse student populations. 
      DESIGN: Population based cross sectional analysis. SETTING: 31 UK universities 
      that offer medical degrees. PARTICIPANTS: 34,407 UK medical students admitted to 
      university in 2002-6. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Age, sex, socioeconomic status, and 
      ethnicity of students admitted to traditional courses and newer courses (graduate 
      entry courses (GEC) and foundation) designed to widen access and increase 
      diversity. RESULTS: The demographics of students admitted to foundation courses 
      were markedly different from traditional, graduate entry, and pre-medical 
      courses. They were less likely to be white and to define their background as 
      higher managerial and professional. Students on the graduate entry programme were 
      older than students on traditional courses (25.5 v 19.2 years) and more likely to 
      be white (odds ratio 3.74, 95% confidence interval 3.27 to 4.28; P<0.001) than 
      those on traditional courses, but there was no difference in the ratio of men. 
      Students on traditional courses at newer schools were significantly older by an 
      average of 2.53 (2.41 to 2.65; P<0.001) years, more likely to be white (1.55, 
      1.41 to 1.71; P<0.001), and significantly less likely to have higher managerial 
      and professional backgrounds than those at established schools (0.67, 0.61 to 
      0.73; P<0.001). There were marked differences in demographics across individual 
      established schools offering both graduate entry and traditional courses. 
      CONCLUSIONS: The graduate entry programmes do not seem to have led to significant 
      changes to the socioeconomic profile of the UK medical student population. 
      Foundation programmes have increased the proportion of students from 
      under-represented groups but numbers entering these courses are small.
FAU - Mathers, Jonathan
AU  - Mathers J
AD  - School of Health and Population Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, 
      Birmingham, West Midlands B15 2TT, UK.
FAU - Sitch, Alice
AU  - Sitch A
FAU - Marsh, Jennifer L
AU  - Marsh JL
FAU - Parry, Jayne
AU  - Parry J
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20110222
PL  - England
TA  - BMJ
JT  - BMJ (Clinical research ed.)
JID - 8900488
SB  - IM
CIN - BMJ. 2011;342:d1941. PMID: 21447573
MH  - Adult
MH  - Cross-Sectional Studies
MH  - Education, Medical, Undergraduate/*statistics & numerical data
MH  - Ethnicity
MH  - Female
MH  - Humans
MH  - Male
MH  - School Admission Criteria/statistics & numerical data/*trends
MH  - Schools, Medical/statistics & numerical data/*trends
MH  - Socioeconomic Factors
MH  - United Kingdom
MH  - Young Adult
PMC - PMC3043108
COIS- Competing interests: All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest 
      form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the 
      corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the 
      submitted work, apart from that mentioned above; all authors are employed by the 
      University of Birmingham, which admits graduate and undergraduate students to its 
      medical programmes; no other relationships or activities that could appear to 
      have influenced the submitted work.
EDAT- 2011/02/24 06:00
MHDA- 2011/03/29 06:00
PMCR- 2011/02/22
CRDT- 2011/02/24 06:00
PHST- 2011/02/24 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2011/02/24 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2011/03/29 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2011/02/22 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - bmj.d918 [pii]
AID - matj790006 [pii]
AID - 10.1136/bmj.d918 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - BMJ. 2011 Feb 22;342:d918. doi: 10.1136/bmj.d918.