So you’re thinking about being a doctor? Then you need to know about applying to medical school and what it entails!
Peninsula WAMS has been set up by medical students from Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry. We aim to give information and support to anyone interested in applying to Medical School.
This includes providing an insight into what it is like to be a medical student, and later a doctor, in order to help you to decide whether it appeals to you.
We organise visits to comprehensive schools within a catchment area of Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset, to give students a taste of Medicine.
Students: Not sure if medicine is for you? We have put together information on the site on all aspects of studying medicine so we can hopefully convince you what a great career it is! If you have already decided that you want to study Medicine, navigating your way through the application process can seem daunting. Therefore you can use this website to answer your questions, and fill in any areas that your school or college have been unable to tell you about.
Teachers: We hope that the information about medicine, and the details of the application process, will help you in guiding your students. If you are interested in arranging for a group of medical students to present at the school where you teach, please contact us here.
Statistics show that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to apply to medical school, and upon application are less likely to gain a place.
Various reasons have been suggested for this including attendance at low academically achieving secondary schools, and limited support and advice when accessing the application system. It has also been recognised that cultural perceptions of the medical profession, for instance seeing it as distant, or incompatible with cultural identity, can also be prohibitive. The result is the current skew towards higher socioeconomic groups within UK medical schools.
WAMS projects are now run by several medical schools. They form part of recent efforts to make Medicine more accessible to those with the potential to become good doctors, who may not otherwise apply for or gain a place, and to make the medical profession more representative of the diverse population that it serves.
For more information check out the British Medical Journal.