Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Medical Education
Date Submitted: May 15, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: May 15, 2023 - Jul 10, 2023
Date Accepted: Oct 18, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Impact of UK Medical Students' Demographics and Socio-economic Factors on Familiarity with the Post-graduate Training Pathways and Application Process: Cross-Sectional Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
United Kingdom (UK) medical graduates can apply for specialty training after completing a two year internship (Foundation Training). Post-foundation training application requirements vary depending on specialty. However, the majority look for similar experiences in key skills such as teaching, research, and leadership.
Objective:
We aimed to investigate whether medical student demographics impact their familiarity with post-graduate training pathways and application process.
Methods:
This was a cross-sectional study using a Bristol Online Survey. All UK medical students were invited to answer a range of questions on their demographics and perceived familiarity with Post-Foundation Training Pathways (PFTPs) and Post-Foundation Application Process (PFAP). The data was collected between March 2022 and April 2022 and was exported for further analysis. Statistical analysis was conducted in Stata v.17.1 using Chi-square tests.
Results:
850 students from over 31 medical schools took part. There was a significant difference between male and female students and familiarity with PFTPs and PFAP (p<0.001), with female students expressing a lower degree of familiarity. Similarly, students from Black, Asian, Mixed Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds expressed significantly lower familiarity (p<0.001) with PFAP, compared to their white counterparts. Furthermore, results showed a significant difference (p<0.001), with participants younger than the average age being less familiar (1/5 or 2/5) with PFAP. Lastly, students from a medical background (a family member or close friend with a medical degree) expressed a significantly higher familiarity with PFTPs and PFAP (p<0.001).
Conclusions:
The impact of gender, ethnicity, age group and medical background on medical students’ self-reported familiarity with PFTP and PFAP are significant. This could explain some of the discrepancies between the demographics of senior clinicians and that of the general population. Further studies are required to evaluate the impact of demographics on tested knowledge of PFTPs and PFAP and whether this has an impact on success rate at post-foundation applications.
Citation
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Copyright
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