Exploring UK medical school differences: the MedDifs study of selection, teaching, student and F1 perceptions, postgraduate outcomes and fitness to practise
Creators: name: McManus, I. C.
name: Harborne, Andrew Christopher
name: Horsfall, Hugo Layard
name: Joseph, Tobin
name: Smith, Daniel T.
name: Marshall-Andon, Tess
name: Samuels, Ryan
name: Kearsley, Joshua William
name: Abbas, Nadine
name: Baig, Hassan
name: Beecham, Joseph
name: Benons, Natasha
name: Caird, Charlie
name: Clark, Ryan
name: Cope, Thomas
name: Coultas, James
name: Debenham, Luke
name: Douglas, Sarah
name: Eldridge, Jack
name: Hughes-Gooding, Thomas
name: Jakubowska, Agnieszka
name: Jones, Oliver
name: Lancaster, Eve
name: MacMillan, Calum
name: McAllister, Ross
name: Merzougui, Wassim
name: Phillips, Ben
name: Phillips, Simon
name: Risk, Omar
name: Sage, Adam
name: Sooltangos, Aisha
name: Spencer, Robert
name: Tajbakhsh, Roxanne
name: Adesalu, Oluseyi
name: Aganin, Ivan
name: Ahmed, Ammar
name: Aiken, Katherine
name: Akeredolu, Alimatu-Sadia
name: Alam, Ibrahim
name: Ali, Aamna
name: Anderson, Richard
name: Ang, Jia Jun
name: Anis, Fady Sameh
name: Aojula, Sonam
name: Arthur, Catherine
name: Ashby, Alena
name: Ashraf, Ahmed
name: Aspinall, Emma
name: Awad, Mark
name: Yahaya, Abdul-Muiz Azri
name: Badhrinarayanan, Shreya
name: Bandyopadhyay, Soham
name: Barnes, Sam
name: Bassey-Duke, Daisy
name: Boreham, Charlotte
name: Braine, Rebecca
name: Brandreth, Joseph
name: Carrington, Zoe
name: Cashin, Zoe
name: Chatterjee, Shaunak
name: Chawla, Mehar
name: Chean, Chung Shen
name: Clements, Chris
name: Clough, Richard
name: Coulthurst, Jessica
name: Curry, Liam
name: Daniels, Vinnie Christine
name: Davies, Simon
name: Davis, Rebecca
name: De Waal, Hanelie
name: Desai, Nasreen
name: Douglas, Hannah
name: Druce, James
name: Ejamike, Lady-Namera
name: Esere, Meron
name: Eyre, Alex
name: Fazmin, Ibrahim Talal
name: Fitzgerald-Smith, Sophia
name: Ford, Verity
name: Freeston, Sarah
name: Garnett, Katherine
name: General, Whitney
name: Gilbert, Helen
name: Gowie, Zein
name: Grafton-Clarke, Ciaran
name: Gudka, Keshni
name: Gumber, Leher
name: Gupta, Rishi
name: Harlow, Chris
name: Harrington, Amy
name: Heaney, Adele
name: Ho, Wing Hang Serene
name: Holloway, Lucy
name: Hood, Christina
name: Houghton, Eleanor
name: Houshangi, Saba
name: Howard, Emma
name: Human, Benjamin
name: Hunter, Harriet
name: Hussain, Ifrah
name: Hussain, Sami
name: Jackson-Taylor, Richard Thomas
name: Jacob-Ramsdale, Bronwen
name: Janjuha, Ryan
name: Jawad, Saleh
name: Jelani, Muzzamil
name: Johnston, David
name: Jones, Mike
name: Kalidindi, Sadhana
name: Kalsi, Savraj
name: Kalyanasundaram, Asanish
name: Kane, Anna
name: Kaur, Sahaj
name: Al-Othman, Othman Khaled
name: Khan, Qaisar
name: Khullar, Sajan
name: Kirkland, Priscilla
name: Lawrence-Smith, Hannah
name: Leeson, Charlotte
name: Lenaerts, Julius Elisabeth Richard
name: Long, Kerry
name: Lubbock, Simon
name: Burrell, Jamie Mac Donald
name: Maguire, Rachel
name: Mahendran, Praveen
name: Majeed, Saad
name: Malhotra, Prabhjot Singh
name: Mandagere, Vinay
name: Mantelakis, Angelos
name: McGovern, Sophie
name: Mosuro, Anjola
name: Moxley, Adam
name: Mustoe, Sophie
name: Myers, Sam
name: Nadeem, Kiran
name: Nasseri, Reza
name: Newman, Tom
name: Nzewi, Richard
name: Ogborne, Rosalie
name: Omatseye, Joyce
name: Paddock, Sophie
name: Parkin, James
name: Patel, Mohit
name: Pawar, Sohini
name: Pearce, Stuart
name: Penrice, Samuel
name: Purdy, Julian
name: Ramjan, Raisa
name: Randhawa, Ratan
name: Rasul, Usman
name: Raymond-Taggert, Elliot
name: Razey, Rebecca
name: Razzaghi, Carmel
name: Reel, Eimear
name: Revell, Elliot John
name: Rigbye, Joanna
name: Rotimi, Oloruntobi
name: Said, Abdelrahman
name: Sanders, Emma
name: Sangal, Pranoy
name: Grandal, Nora Sangvik
name: Shah, Aadam
name: Shah, Rahul Atul
name: Shotton, Oliver
name: Sims, Daniel
name: Smart, Katie
name: Smith, Martha Amy
name: Smith, Nick
name: Sopian, Aninditya Salma
name: South, Matthew
name: Speller, Jessica
name: Syer, Tom J.
name: Ta, Ngan Hong
name: Tadross, Daniel
name: Thompson, Benjamin
name: Trevett, Jess
name: Tyler, Matthew
name: Ullah, Roshan
name: Utukuri, Mrudula
name: Vadera, Shree
name: Van Den Tooren, Harriet
name: Venturini, Sara
name: Vijayakumar, Aradhya
name: Vine, Melanie
name: Wellbelove, Zoe
name: Wittner, Liora
name: Yong, Geoffrey Hong Kiat
name: Ziyada, Farris
name: Devine, Oliver Patrick
Publisher: name: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository
Year: 2020
Subjects: Research Article
Medical school differences
Teaching styles
National Student Survey
National Training Study
Postgraduate qualifications
Fitness to practise
GMC sanctions
Problem-based learning
Preparedness
Institutional histories

description: Abstract: Background: Medical schools differ, particularly in their teaching, but it is unclear whether such differences matter, although influential claims are often made. The Medical School Differences (MedDifs) study brings together a wide range of measures of UK medical schools, including postgraduate performance, fitness to practise issues, specialty choice, preparedness, satisfaction, teaching styles, entry criteria and institutional factors. Method: Aggregated data were collected for 50 measures across 29 UK medical schools. Data include institutional history (e.g. rate of production of hospital and GP specialists in the past), curricular influences (e.g. PBL schools, spend per student, staff-student ratio), selection measures (e.g. entry grades), teaching and assessment (e.g. traditional vs PBL, specialty teaching, self-regulated learning), student satisfaction, Foundation selection scores, Foundation satisfaction, postgraduate examination performance and fitness to practise (postgraduate progression, GMC sanctions). Six specialties (General Practice, Psychiatry, Anaesthetics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Internal Medicine, Surgery) were examined in more detail. Results: Medical school differences are stable across time (median alpha = 0.835). The 50 measures were highly correlated, 395 (32.2%) of 1225 correlations being significant with p &lt; 0.05, and 201 (16.4%) reached a Tukey-adjusted criterion of p &lt; 0.0025. Problem-based learning (PBL) schools differ on many measures, including lower performance on postgraduate assessments. While these are in part explained by lower entry grades, a surprising finding is that schools such as PBL schools which reported greater student satisfaction with feedback also showed lower performance at postgraduate examinations. More medical school teaching of psychiatry, surgery and anaesthetics did not result in more specialist trainees. Schools that taught more general practice did have more graduates entering GP training, but those graduates performed less well in MRCGP examinations, the negative correlation resulting from numbers of GP trainees and exam outcomes being affected both by non-traditional teaching and by greater historical production of GPs. Postgraduate exam outcomes were also higher in schools with more self-regulated learning, but lower in larger medical schools. A path model for 29 measures found a complex causal nexus, most measures causing or being caused by other measures. Postgraduate exam performance was influenced by earlier attainment, at entry to Foundation and entry to medical school (the so-called academic backbone), and by self-regulated learning. Foundation measures of satisfaction, including preparedness, had no subsequent influence on outcomes. Fitness to practise issues were more frequent in schools producing more male graduates and more GPs. Conclusions: Medical schools differ in large numbers of ways that are causally interconnected. Differences between schools in postgraduate examination performance, training problems and GMC sanctions have important implications for the quality of patient care and patient safety.