I\u2019m writing this the evening before a meeting with the General Medical Council and HEE Wessex, when we will be formally given feedback from our regulator on their five yearly Review of our University of Southampton BMBS Medicine programmes.\u00a0 Last November we submitted fifty written documents to the GMC, detailing our curricula, their governance and processes, our assessments, our oversight of placements, our student support systems and so on.\u00a0 Our students, across all years, were invited to complete a questionnaire detailing their opinions of the course. They replied in record numbers for a GMC Review, rating the course and their experiences of it very highly.<\/p>\n
The Review included a GMC team visit to us at Highfield in March 2018, on a wet windy day, coincident with strike action and road works on Bassett Avenue.\u00a0 In addition to the discussions with many members of staff, we were delighted that over 50 students turned up to relate their experiences of the course in the student session.\u00a0 The final Visit Report (- which will be published on the GMC website shortly) gives an excellent appraisal of our BM programmes.\u00a0 There are some great statements in the list of \u2018Areas that are working well\u2019, amongst them: \u2018The students recommend Southampton Medical School as a friendly and good quality educational experience.\u00a0 They believe that the course is preparing them effectively for practice\u2019; \u2018Students are engaged at all levels within the medical school. The school is prepared to listen and adjust their processes to improve student experience\u2019; \u2018Rotations appear to be well constructed and designed to improve exposure to a diverse range of patient types\u2019; \u2018The pastoral support systems that are in place are working well and are highly valued by the students\u2019.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Huge thanks to all our staff and students who contributed in the Review. It was a positive process and we should feel proud, and spread the word, that the GMC rates our medicine courses so highly.<\/p>\n Further confirmation that the BM Programmes here have an excellent reputation comes from the record number of applications that we received last year to the BM 4, 5 and 6 programmes.\u00a0 This increase was achieved despite the reduction in numbers of school leavers choosing to study medicine, and increased medical school places across the country. \u00a0And in July our first cohort of BM(EU) students graduated \u2013 a great day of celebration, shared with colleagues from Kassel, Germany and Professor Chris Stephens, our emeritus Professor of Medical Education who was instrumental in establishing this innovative programme.<\/p>\n So Southampton Medicine is thriving. Or is it?\u00a0 Less good news came in August, when the results of the National Student Survey 2018 were released. \u00a0Medicine at Southampton scored poorly in this anonymous survey of final year student opinion, in complete contrast to our excellent GMC survey and Review findings.\u00a0 We believe that this low score is a single \u2018blip\u2019, reflecting challenges in having both the \u2018original\u2019 curriculum and the first iteration of the \u2018new\u2019 curriculum final year running side by side.\u00a0 We must, and will, improve on this next year.<\/p>\n