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Student GMC News
News on medical education, regulation and
ethics for tomorrow’s doctors
 
Dear Colleague

Welcome to the brand new e-bulletin for medical students from the General Medical Council.

Whatever stage you are at in your education, we hope this bulletin will help you to understand who we are and what we do, why our work is important and relevant to you, and the ways in which we can support you in your studies. We also want to let you know about the guidance you will need to follow when you become a doctor, and keep you informed about developments in medical education and regulation. In addition, your views and involvement will be of great value to us when we are developing guidance.

This issue of Student GMC News focuses on professionalism and highlights a new podcast in which medical students, a medical school Dean and a Foundation Year 2 doctor talk about what professionalism means to them.

We would welcome your thoughts, too, on professionalism and topics you’d like us to cover in future editions, so that we can make sure this bulletin meets your needs. Please send your comments and suggestions to students@gmc-uk.org

Professor Jim McKillop
Chair, GMC Undergraduate Board

The GMC is the independent regulator for doctors in the UK. Our statutory purpose is to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine.

We do this by controlling entry to the medical register and setting the educational standards for medical schools. We also determine the principles and values that underpin good medical practice and we take firm but fair action where those standards have not been met.

For more information on all aspects of our work visit www.gmc-uk.org
Defining professionalism – a new podcast from the GMC
To deliver an accurate diagnosis, you need to know your science, but being a good doctor depends on more than this. Patients must be able to trust doctors with their lives and health, and this level of confidence depends on doctors having a range of skills and attributes.

This week sees the launch of a new podcast for students highlighting the importance of professionalism. It features interviews with medical students; Professor Jane Dacre, GMC Council Member and Director of Medical Education and Vice-Dean at UCL Medical School; and a Foundation Year 2 doctor, all of whom have their own insights into medical professionalism, its teaching and its practice.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

An ability to communicate complex information clearly, a respect for patients’ confidentiality and a willingness to respond to their concerns and wishes are all important features of a good doctor. Each of these attributes – and many others besides – contributes to a set of professional values which all doctors need to demonstrate.

The new version of Tomorrow’s Doctors, which sets out the standards that medical students must meet before they graduate, defines the professionalism expected of medical students in more detail.
Quick links:
Information for medical students 
Tomorrow’s Doctors 
Student fitness to practise 
Quality assuring medical schools 
“We all remember inspirational doctors – this helps us to develop good practice which we can use as a foundation for the rest of our careers….Students need to experience professionalism early in their education”
Nicholas Deakin,
3rd Year Medical Student
 
“Professionalism is hard to define, yet easier to spot when it is absent”
Adrian Raby,
clinical lecturer and GP
“Perhaps it would help students to ask themselves how they would like to be treated and cared for”
Claire Eatock,
Lay adviser to the GMC

Developing our ethical guidance

In future editions of Student GMC News we will be focussing on a wide range of ethical issues to help you to develop your understanding of our guidance in preparation for your life in practice. What topics or issues are of particular interest to you? Please click here to tell us what ethical issues or guidance you’d like to hear more about in future issues of Student GMC News.

The GMC has a statutory role to provide guidance to doctors on medical ethics, and to keep that guidance up-to-date to ensure it is consistent with the law, reflects public and professional attitudes and addresses the problems and concerns faced by doctors today.

Our core guidance is Good Medical Practice, which sets out the principles and values on which good practice is founded. We also publish guidance on a wide range of topics, including confidentiality, consent, caring for children and young people and conducting research.

In 2009 we undertook a major consultation on new guidance to replace our existing publication Withholding and withdrawing life-prolonging treatments. This guidance looks more broadly at caring for patients nearing the end of life and will be published later this year.

Later in the year we will also publish new guidance on good practice in research, including advice on seeking consent from patients and volunteers, an updated version of our guidance on making and using audio and visual recordings of patients, and we will be starting work on a review of our booklet Management for Doctors.

Click here to learn more about the range of ethical guidance we produce.

Medical education and training: looking to the future

Did you know that Foundation Programme doctors are currently regulated by two bodies – the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB) and the GMC? From April 2010 PMETB will merge with the GMC and the GMC will then take on responsibility for regulating all stages of a doctor’s career – beginning with your first day at medical school, through to specialty training, becoming a consultant or GP and up until retirement.

Alongside the merger, the GMC and PMETB invited Lord Naren Patel, Chair of the National Patient Safety Agency, to lead a review of the current arrangements for the regulation of medical education and training. The review has been running for over a year and we have recently published the draft report for public consultation.

The report explores a range of issues, including selection into medical school, the current arrangements for signing off doctors who have successfully completed the first year of the Foundation Programme, and whether the GMC should have greater oversight of the assessment methods for selection into specialist training.

While some of these issues considered by the review may not seem particularly relevant to you now, the outcome of this review will have an impact on your career in the years ahead.

If you want to comment on the draft report, which will help shape the future of medical education and training, we are consulting on the draft report until 9 March 2010. Click here for full details.
We want to hear your views on this bulletin, and to find out which aspects of our work are of interest to you so that we can cover these topics in future editions. Please send your comments and suggestions to students@gmc-uk.org

Please feel free to forward this bulletin to your friends and colleagues.
General Medical Council, 3 Hardman Street, Manchester, M3 3AW
The GMC is a charity registered in England and Wales (1089278) and Scotland (SC037750)

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