Widening participation is for life, not just for admissions

Widening participation efforts in medicine aim to remove the barriers to a medical career faced by students from traditionally under-represented and lower income backgrounds.1 Supporting medics who come from a wide range of backgrounds helps to create a workforce that better reflects the communities that healthcare professionals serve. Literature shows that widening participation improves underserved populations’ access to healthcare, tackling the inverse care law.2Widening participation initiatives have been supported by large and influential organisations, including the BMA, and now every UK medical school must have some form of outreach scheme to encourage applicants from widening participation backgrounds.3 But are medical schools providing adequate support for these students once they are in medical school?The costs of studying medicineThe undergraduate UK medical degree differs from other degrees in several ways. For one, it is longer, usually taking five to six years instead of the typical three to four years. Medical degrees have…
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