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| I'm a doctor from a disadvantaged background. Why is that so unusual? | I'm a doctor from a disadvantaged background. Why is that so unusual? |
| (3 days later) | |
| I remember my first medical school interview. It was February. It was freezing. It was my first time in London and I was a starry-eyed 17-year-old. I saw hordes of teenagers with pristinely ironed suits, slicked-back hair and polished black shoes who spoke with immaculate cut-glass English accents. I immediately felt out of place. | I remember my first medical school interview. It was February. It was freezing. It was my first time in London and I was a starry-eyed 17-year-old. I saw hordes of teenagers with pristinely ironed suits, slicked-back hair and polished black shoes who spoke with immaculate cut-glass English accents. I immediately felt out of place. |
| Private school, with its emphasis on public speaking and smart appearance, prepares you for medical interviews. The ability to critically appraise, reason and logically construct an argument are soft skills that tend to be more developed in privately educated pupils. This means that more pupils from better schools, or with parents who have cultural and social capital, disproportionately get offered a place at medical school – despite the efforts of universities to level the playing field through various access schemes. | Private school, with its emphasis on public speaking and smart appearance, prepares you for medical interviews. The ability to critically appraise, reason and logically construct an argument are soft skills that tend to be more developed in privately educated pupils. This means that more pupils from better schools, or with parents who have cultural and social capital, disproportionately get offered a place at medical school – despite the efforts of universities to level the playing field through various access schemes. |
| Coming from a poor performing secondary school in an inner city area with 8% of pupils going into further education (the lowest rate in the country at the time), I was a far cry from the public schoolboy caricatures I encountered that day. The enormity of the class gap became more apparent during medical school. In my class of eight, I was the only one with any semblance of a regional accent. People came from only a few miles from my house but were a million miles from me socially. | Coming from a poor performing secondary school in an inner city area with 8% of pupils going into further education (the lowest rate in the country at the time), I was a far cry from the public schoolboy caricatures I encountered that day. The enormity of the class gap became more apparent during medical school. In my class of eight, I was the only one with any semblance of a regional accent. People came from only a few miles from my house but were a million miles from me socially. |
| Whereas my classmates would often go back to their parents’ country house in the summer and take a skiing trip in the winter, I’d go back to my four siblings in a two-bedroomed terraced house in post-industrial Sheffield. The sheer gulf in worldly experience meant that we had very little in common. | Whereas my classmates would often go back to their parents’ country house in the summer and take a skiing trip in the winter, I’d go back to my four siblings in a two-bedroomed terraced house in post-industrial Sheffield. The sheer gulf in worldly experience meant that we had very little in common. |
| Last month, a hashtag gained some traction on Twitter. This time, it was doctors who were using #mypathtomedicine to show that not all of us have had the conventional well-to-do middle class upbringing typically associated with the profession. The sort of privileged upbringing that moulds the kind of well-spoken, privately educated, pinstriped-suit-wearing doctor we often come across. | Last month, a hashtag gained some traction on Twitter. This time, it was doctors who were using #mypathtomedicine to show that not all of us have had the conventional well-to-do middle class upbringing typically associated with the profession. The sort of privileged upbringing that moulds the kind of well-spoken, privately educated, pinstriped-suit-wearing doctor we often come across. |
| 70 years after the inception of the NHS, we still have to prove that access to medicine is a meritocracy | 70 years after the inception of the NHS, we still have to prove that access to medicine is a meritocracy |
| The hashtag soon garnered almost 2m impressions and many comments and retweets. There are some pertinent points to be made in all of this. That doctors come from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds, including some of the most disadvantaged like myself, should not come as a surprise to anyone. Indeed, it is medicine that is conventionally seen as an aspirational profession in many black and minority ethnic communities – and often a safe, albeit long and hard, way out of relative poverty. This was certainly an important factor in me becoming a doctor: I wanted to leave my surroundings and never return to a life of struggle. | The hashtag soon garnered almost 2m impressions and many comments and retweets. There are some pertinent points to be made in all of this. That doctors come from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds, including some of the most disadvantaged like myself, should not come as a surprise to anyone. Indeed, it is medicine that is conventionally seen as an aspirational profession in many black and minority ethnic communities – and often a safe, albeit long and hard, way out of relative poverty. This was certainly an important factor in me becoming a doctor: I wanted to leave my surroundings and never return to a life of struggle. |
| However, 70 years after the inception of the NHS, we still have to prove that access to medicine is a meritocracy – and that there are many of us who have “made it”. We still have to shout about overcoming our relative social handicap. | However, 70 years after the inception of the NHS, we still have to prove that access to medicine is a meritocracy – and that there are many of us who have “made it”. We still have to shout about overcoming our relative social handicap. |
| Medicine, like any other public and emergency service, should have a wide-ranging demographic profile and be equally representative of all social classes in the UK. But it is not. The profession still has an air of privilege about it. A report published by the government’s social mobility commission last summer revealed that 61% of doctors came from a privately educated background. The same cannot be said of any other public service. | Medicine, like any other public and emergency service, should have a wide-ranging demographic profile and be equally representative of all social classes in the UK. But it is not. The profession still has an air of privilege about it. A report published by the government’s social mobility commission last summer revealed that 61% of doctors came from a privately educated background. The same cannot be said of any other public service. |
| No one can change their upbringing, but local authorities (LAs) can certainly do more to ensure that state school applicants to medicine are given all the support they need. Preparatory courses for interviews, entrance exams and life at medical school would not go amiss. LAs need to ensure that future doctors from poor-performing state schools are given classes in the life skills as well as the advanced communication skills that can help them achieve their full potential – and become the best possible doctors. | No one can change their upbringing, but local authorities (LAs) can certainly do more to ensure that state school applicants to medicine are given all the support they need. Preparatory courses for interviews, entrance exams and life at medical school would not go amiss. LAs need to ensure that future doctors from poor-performing state schools are given classes in the life skills as well as the advanced communication skills that can help them achieve their full potential – and become the best possible doctors. |
| At a time when the NHS is haemorrhaging doctors, staff morale is at an all-time low and the doctor-to-patient ratio is at its lowest in NHS history, it is time for medicine to appeal to a wider audience and demonstrate that not all doctors are pale, male and stale. | At a time when the NHS is haemorrhaging doctors, staff morale is at an all-time low and the doctor-to-patient ratio is at its lowest in NHS history, it is time for medicine to appeal to a wider audience and demonstrate that not all doctors are pale, male and stale. |
| • Dr Asif Munaf is a year 2 core medical trainee who works in Nottingham | • Dr Asif Munaf is a year 2 core medical trainee who works in Nottingham |
| If you would like to contribute to our Blood, sweat and tears series about experiences in healthcare, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. | If you would like to contribute to our Blood, sweat and tears series about experiences in healthcare, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com. |
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