The University of Edinburgh’s Medical School has partnered with the charity You Can Be A Doctor on a year-long programme that will bring classroom sessions to 23 state secondary schools in the city.
The project was launched on October 29 at Castlebrae Community Campus, as part of events marking 300 years of medical education at the University.
Founded by an Edinburgh medical student and run by doctors and medical students, the charity supports pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds on the path to medicine, including help with university applications.
A King’s College London study found that people with professionally employed parents are six times more likely to become doctors than those with a working-class parent.
Lead author Dr Nathan Cheetham described a “stubborn class inequality” that has barely shifted since the 1960s.
In a BMA feature, Dr Laura McManus, who grew up in poverty, recalled believing that “people like me don’t become doctors.”
In the sessions, pupils will meet medical professionals and hear first-hand what practising medicine involves. Professor Lorna Marson, the University’s Dean of Clinical Medicine, said in a statement that the students who get into medicine should be decided by talent, not circumstance.
Alsadeg Bilall, a MB-PhD student who was inspired by the charity as a teenager, said in the same statement that his experiences are now “impacting other young people.”
During the sessions, pupils will meet medical professionals and medical students to hear first-hand about what it is like to practice medicine.
A current medical student at the University said: “many of my peers had parents who had access to work experience opportunities and helped them through the admission process.”
She added: “hopefully the campaign will help to address this inequality to allow more people to aspire to a medical profession.”
One pupil told The Student that “seeing medical students and doctors together will help pupils to visualise the path to a medical profession.”
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
