PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Hidden costs of applying to medical school will deter poorer students

Personal view: Selecting tomorrow's doctors -- not a level playing field

2010-11-03
(Press-News.org) In the UK, medical students are 4.5 to 7.2 times more likely to come from the wealthier socio-economic groups 1-3 than 4-7, write Professor Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and Lucy Stephenson, a medical student.

Selection to a medical course should not depend on the applicants' financial status. However, with "grade inflation" at A level, choosing between applicants can involve other criteria that may depend on ability to pay, they say.

They calculate that the activities required as part of the selection process for many medical courses comes to over £1,600.

The costs include travel to attend UKCAT and BMAT exams, and a residential course to familiarise applicants with the medical career and the complex application process, and to have interview coaching and guidance.

It also includes the cost of attending six open days, as far afield as Exeter and Edinburgh, and an average of two interviews, usually accompanied by one or both parents. If offered a place, students may also pay for vaccinations essential to commencing the course.

Adding all these costs together comes to £1609.60, they say.

But this figure doesn't include non-academic activities, such as music, sport, or work experience that can also influence whether an applicant is offered a place, but that often require significant financial assistance over many years.

They also point out that a school pupil from a poor background may have a part-time job evenings and weekends in addition to their four A level subjects competing for their time and resources.

They conclude: "In addition to the greater opportunity that professional parents have to arrange appropriate work experience, and the lesser debt aversion of wealthier families (medical students finish the course with average debts of £35,000), the costs described here may further disadvantage young people from poorer backgrounds in the process of selection for medical school."

INFORMATION:

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

U-M's concept of value-based insurance design featured in major health policy journal

2010-11-03
Ann Arbor, Mich. — Value-Based Insurance Design — a concept created at the University of Michigan and incorporated in the nation's new health care reform law — is the focus of an upcoming national policy journal. Health Affairs, the nation's premier health policy journal, is featuring a cluster of papers in its November issue about growing interest in and adoption of Value-Based Insurance Design (V-BID). The concept was first developed and named by U-M faculty A. Mark Fendrick, M.D., and Dean Smith, Ph.D., along with Michael Chernew, Ph.D., formerly of U-M and now at ...

Strengthening routine flu vaccination and health programs may improve pandemic vaccinations

Strengthening routine flu vaccination and health programs may improve pandemic vaccinations
2010-11-03
Strengthening routine influenza vaccination and health programs may help states improve their vaccination coverage against future pandemics or other health emergencies, a new study suggests. The study -- conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) -- examined factors that may have contributed to the striking state-by-state variation in U.S. H1N1 flu vaccination rates. The results of the study were revealed on Oct. 26 at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Medical Decision ...

GOES-13 catches Tropical Storm Tomas' early morning strengthening

GOES-13 catches Tropical Storm Tomas early morning strengthening
2010-11-03
The GOES-13 satellite keeps a continuous eye on the eastern half of the U.S. and Atlantic Ocean basin, and has provided meteorologists with an infrared look at a strengthening Tropical Storm Tomas this morning. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites like GOES-13 are managed by NOAA. The NASA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. creates images and animations from the GOES satellite data. When GOES-13 provided an infrared image (because it was taken at night) today, Nov. 2 at 0845 UTC (4:45 a.m. EDT), Tropical Storm Tomas ...

NJIT math professor illuminates cellular basis of neural impulse transmission

2010-11-03
NJIT Associate Professor Victor Matveev, PhD, in the department of mathematical sciences, was part of a research team that published "N-type Ca2+ channels carry the largest current: Implications for nanodomains and transmitter release," in Nature Neuroscience on Oct. 17, 2010. http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v13/n11/abs/nn.2657.html Leading the project, Elise Stanley, PhD, a senior scientist at the Toronto Western Research Institute, said that Matveev's mathematical modeling showed that calcium influx through a single N-type calcium channel is sufficient to trigger ...

Improving health care in the Internet age

2010-11-03
Faster and more widely available internet access has improved our lives in many ways but healthcare is lagging behind, according to researchers writing in the International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics. The US team suggests that there is immense potential for the utilization of digitized personal health records (PHR) in chronic disease management. They have reviewed the state of the art in healthcare portals, assessed the standardization and the legality of health record s and point to a need to improve interoperability, which still represents a major ...

New study re-examines bacterial vaccine studies conducted during 1918 influenza pandemic

2010-11-03
WHAT: Secondary infections with bacteria such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, which causes pneumonia, were a major cause of death during the 1918 flu pandemic and may be important in modern pandemics as well, according to a new article in the Journal of Infectious Diseases co-authored by David M. Morens, M.D., senior advisor to the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The researchers examined 13 studies published between 1918 and 1920. During this time, many scientists erroneously believed that ...

Gastric bypass alters sweet taste function

2010-11-03
Gastric bypass surgery decreases the preference for sweet-tasting substances in obese rats, a study finding that could help in developing safer treatments for the morbidly obese, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. "Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery is the most common effective treatment for morbid obesity," said Andras Hajnal, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Neural and Behavioral Science and Surgery. "Many patients report altered taste preferences after having the procedure." This surgery involves the creation of a small gastric ...

The Scientist's Life Science Salary Survey 2010 -- results announced

2010-11-03
This year's Salary Survey saw drops in salaries across the board with almost every speciality suffering a setback, some with dips as large as $20,000 (ecology) and $28,000 (virology). However, a few select fields, namely bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, and neuroscience, bucked the trend and actually posted salary increases this year. Whilst it is not easy to determine why these specialities saw salaries rise and others saw salaries cut, Mark Musen, head of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research at Stanford University commented: "I've noticed ...

Antibody locks up West Nile's infection mechanism

2010-11-03
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have learned the structure that results when an antibody binds to the West Nile virus, neutralizing the virus by locking up its infection mechanism. The information could help scientists develop a vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease. The findings show precisely how a key part of the antibody, called the antigen binding fragment, or Fab, attaches to two adjacent protein molecules that make up the virus's outer shell. This "crosslinking" attachment between molecules is repeated over the entire shell, interlocking the 30 molecular ...

Daily dose of beet juice promotes brain health in older adults

2010-11-03
Winston-Salem, N.C. – Researchers for the first time have shown that drinking beet juice can increase blood flow to the brain in older adults – a finding that could hold great potential for combating the progression of dementia. The research findings are available online in Nitric Oxide: Biology and Chemistry, the peer-reviewed journal of the Nitric Oxide Society and will be available in print soon. (Read the abstract.) "There have been several very high-profile studies showing that drinking beet juice can lower blood pressure, but we wanted to show that drinking beet ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Pioneering neuroendocrinologist's century of discovery launches major scientific tribute series

Gendered bilingualism in post-colonial Korea

Structural safety monitoring of buildings with color variations

Bio-based fibers could pose greater threat to the environment than conventional plastics

Bacteria breakthrough could accelerate mosquito control schemes

Argonne to help drive AI revolution in astronomy with new institute led by Northwestern University

Medicaid funding for addiction treatment hasn’t curbed overdose deaths

UVA co-leads $2.9 million NIH investigation into where systems may fail people with disabilities

With the help of AI, UC Berkeley researchers confirm Hollywood is getting more diverse

Weight loss interventions associated with improvements in several symptoms of PCOS

Federal government may be overpaying for veterans’ health care in Medicare Advantage plans

Researchers awarded $2.5 million grant to increase lung cancer screenings in underserved communities

New trigger proposed for record-smashing 2022 Tonga eruption

Lupus Research Alliance announces Lupus Research Highlights at ACR Convergence 2024

Satellite imagery may help protect coastal forests from climate change

The secrets of baseball's magic mud

Toddlers understand concept of possibility

Small reductions to meat production in wealthier countries may help fight climate change, new analysis concludes

Scientists determine why some patients don’t respond well to wet macular degeneration treatment, show how new experimental drug can bridge gap

Did the world's best-preserved dinosaurs really die in 'Pompeii-type' events?

Not the usual suspects: Novel genetic basis of pest resistance to biotech crops

Jill Tarter to receive Inaugural Tarter Award for Innovation in the search for life beyond earth

Survey finds continued declines in HIV clinician workforce

Researchers home in on tumor vulnerabilities to improve odds of treating glioblastoma

Awareness of lung cancer screening remains low

Hospital COVID-19 burden and adverse event rates

NSF NOIRLab astronomers discover the fastest-feeding black hole in the early universe

Translational science reviews—a new JAMA review

How the keto diet could one day treat autoimmune disorders

Influence of tool corner radius on chip geometrical characteristics of machining Zr-based bulk metallic glass

[Press-News.org] Hidden costs of applying to medical school will deter poorer students
Personal view: Selecting tomorrow's doctors -- not a level playing field