I
Volume 69 November 1976
811
Section of Medical Education President G Smnart FRCP
Meeting 12 November 1975
Medicine in the Open University [Abridged] Mr Ivor Shipley (Open Medicinie Triust, Pickhturst Lane, Hayes, Bromley, Ken,t, BR2 7JE) The Open Medicine Trust is a charitable trust with about 1600 members, which has organized several meetings on the subject of medical education in the Open University. It is hoped that professional and statutory bodies within medicine will soon be able to enter into discussion on the allocation of resources for medicine through the Open University (OU). The aim should be to establish a medical faculty especially for undergraduate courses: not to supersede established postgraduate education. The OU provides a second chance for mature students who could make further and efficient use of training resources within NHS hospitals &c. for clinical training. There are many current problems in the NHS: economic recession; the consequences of the Merrison proposals including a restructured GMC; and the EEC directives. Through all this, there is an undoubted nieed for more 'homegrown' doctors, just as there is a need for more doctors world-wide. There will be trends towards more continiuing medical education, and more social hours and conditions of work; and the public awareness of the scope of medicine will increase. Health care problems are augmented by many aspects of modern life with its complexity and incrcezsing population: patient care is no longer coincident with the power to prescribe. The OU success formula is to be open with respect to people, places, methods, and ideas. This is coupled with a particular style of educational technology. With deference to what they have already achieved, can the professions, particularly medicine, match this degree of openness ? An OU medical curriculum could be based on the principles set out by the EEC Commission: many 'preclinical' subjects are already offered by
the OU. Most existing medical schools already farm out their students to many hospitals and tutors: there is spare capacity for OU students. In addition, the provision of OU medical training to members of the health care team must improve communication within the team. The OU approach to the expansion of medical education would be much cheaper than building new medical schools. The OU could explore educational methods without the restrictions of tradition. The OU is a large publisher, and a large university already: and medical education through the OU is timely and reasonable.Existing 'planning' has already ensured that Milton Keynes, the home of the OU, and a major overspill town of 120 000 people, has no hospital: must the structure of present medical education also ensure that it has no medical faculty? Mr John Potter
(Tlhe Medical School, Woodstock Road, Oxford) The OU could offer a chance for mature students to enter medicine, and a second chance for well qualified school leavers. In any case, an OU course in medicine would be an experiment well worth trying in its own right. Is it ethically right for this country to rely so much on overseas doctors, and is it prudent to assume that this supply will continue? And, is it educationally sound to attempt to build a British medical education on a foundation of general (premedical) education, which has not been tested by the requirements for entry to a British medical school? The unequal distribution of health-care resources is well known (see, for example, Which?, August 1975), but the redistribution simply of posts and money to 'deprived' areas will not necessarily attract doctors. It is generally accepted that a medical school improves local standards of health care, and OU clinical courses centred
Volume 69 November 1976
811
Section of Medical Education President G Smnart FRCP
Meeting 12 November 1975
Medicine in the Open University [Abridged] Mr Ivor Shipley (Open Medicinie Triust, Pickhturst Lane, Hayes, Bromley, Ken,t, BR2 7JE) The Open Medicine Trust is a charitable trust with about 1600 members, which has organized several meetings on the subject of medical education in the Open University. It is hoped that professional and statutory bodies within medicine will soon be able to enter into discussion on the allocation of resources for medicine through the Open University (OU). The aim should be to establish a medical faculty especially for undergraduate courses: not to supersede established postgraduate education. The OU provides a second chance for mature students who could make further and efficient use of training resources within NHS hospitals &c. for clinical training. There are many current problems in the NHS: economic recession; the consequences of the Merrison proposals including a restructured GMC; and the EEC directives. Through all this, there is an undoubted nieed for more 'homegrown' doctors, just as there is a need for more doctors world-wide. There will be trends towards more continiuing medical education, and more social hours and conditions of work; and the public awareness of the scope of medicine will increase. Health care problems are augmented by many aspects of modern life with its complexity and incrcezsing population: patient care is no longer coincident with the power to prescribe. The OU success formula is to be open with respect to people, places, methods, and ideas. This is coupled with a particular style of educational technology. With deference to what they have already achieved, can the professions, particularly medicine, match this degree of openness ? An OU medical curriculum could be based on the principles set out by the EEC Commission: many 'preclinical' subjects are already offered by
the OU. Most existing medical schools already farm out their students to many hospitals and tutors: there is spare capacity for OU students. In addition, the provision of OU medical training to members of the health care team must improve communication within the team. The OU approach to the expansion of medical education would be much cheaper than building new medical schools. The OU could explore educational methods without the restrictions of tradition. The OU is a large publisher, and a large university already: and medical education through the OU is timely and reasonable.Existing 'planning' has already ensured that Milton Keynes, the home of the OU, and a major overspill town of 120 000 people, has no hospital: must the structure of present medical education also ensure that it has no medical faculty? Mr John Potter
(Tlhe Medical School, Woodstock Road, Oxford) The OU could offer a chance for mature students to enter medicine, and a second chance for well qualified school leavers. In any case, an OU course in medicine would be an experiment well worth trying in its own right. Is it ethically right for this country to rely so much on overseas doctors, and is it prudent to assume that this supply will continue? And, is it educationally sound to attempt to build a British medical education on a foundation of general (premedical) education, which has not been tested by the requirements for entry to a British medical school? The unequal distribution of health-care resources is well known (see, for example, Which?, August 1975), but the redistribution simply of posts and money to 'deprived' areas will not necessarily attract doctors. It is generally accepted that a medical school improves local standards of health care, and OU clinical courses centred
