Tomorrow’s Doctors and YCfM
Civitas, 7 September 2009
Embedded deep within the sub-bullet points of the General Medical Council’s updated version of Tomorrow’s Doctors—the publication outlining the skills, abilities and values UK medical schools must instil in students before graduation—is something especially significant.
Most of the 2009 document emphasises the importance of integrating clinical and non-clinical education. Its foreword explains that just as medical schools have the responsibility to equip students with the scientific background and technical skills they need for practice, they must also enable new graduates to understand and commit to high personal and professional values—much of which, it goes on to explain, involve patient-focused emotional intelligence. Dealing tactfully and empathetically with bereavement, cultural differences, and individual patient preferences is certainly crucial to the success of any physician today, but there is something else in this document to which I hope medical schools are paying attention.
On page 17, listed under desired outcomes for graduates, is the ability to ‘discuss the principles underlying the development of health and health service policy, including issues relating to health economics and equity, and clinical guidelines’.
This is something that was not included in the GMC’s earlier versions of the publication, and it is particularly relevant as physicians are increasingly being called upon to not only provide clinical leadership, but to champion NHS reform. But how can young doctors suddenly be expected to lead change when until now, the policies and politics of the NHS—long considered the proprietary domain of managers and politicians—were noticeably absent from medical school curricula?
Civitas is pleased to introduce an initiative to aid this discussion. Young Civitas for Medics will be a student-run series of speakers and events intended to encourage medical students to get involved with NHS policy and to spark curiosity in the ‘business’ and politics behind medicine in the United Kingdom. Upcoming interactive discussions will be focused on such topics as: A crash course in the NHS reform, The price of a life: rationalising cost-effective medicine, and Who’s the boss? Doctors, managers and professionals.
We are currently looking for student representatives at UK medical schools and would be happy to hear from those with interest. Please email: ycfm@civitas.org.uk.
Look out for a press release in the coming weeks…