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UCL research shows that UK ethnic minority (EM) medical students and doctors frequently underperform in both undergraduate and postgraduate examinations. These findings have been used to help ensure the safety of medical healthcare, particularly via contributions to debate and decision-making among policy-makers and medical education professionals. This has led to: the development of new or amended guidelines; changes to the ways in which international examinations are run; greater transparency in the sector's analyses of how ethnicity impacts on key outcomes; and subsequently greater transparency in the public dissemination of information relating to medical education's successes and shortcomings. The use of the research to inform relevant media discourse has likewise improved transparency about these shortcomings, as well as engaging a broad public audience with these and important related issues.
Research in Medical Humanities, including a distinctive input from English Studies, has influenced the working practices of a wide range of individuals and groups, both in the arts and in medicine, at regional, national and international levels. Beneficiaries include medical professionals and writers, artists and museums. The impacts on medical practitioners have been: to influence professional conceptions of medicine, illness and the body; to influence policy and training through collaboration with the Royal College of General Practitioners; and to alter medical perceptions of consultation in general practice. The impacts on creative work have been: to inspire and promote specific works in creative arts; and to shape the exhibition policy of the Royal College of Surgeons in bringing their art collection to public benefit.
For many academically able young people, low social class remains a persistent barrier to medical education and, subsequently, to careers in medicine: those from social class I are 100 times more likely than those from classes IV or V to win a place at medical school. Since 2004, research conducted at UCL has underpinned the development of a free Widening Participation (WP) programme for young people from non-selective state schools. That programme incorporates a wide range of activities, including a summer school; outreach programme; mentoring scheme and work experience placements to provide structured support and guidance for applications by non-selective state school students to medical school. Since 2007 more than 700 pupils have taken part in the programme. 18% of the first cohort obtained places at medical school and in 2013, 9% of that group qualified as doctors from UCL Medical School.
Professor Gareth Williams' research into the history of smallpox and polio, and his associated work for the public understanding of vaccination has influenced health professionals, teachers and educators, school children, medical students, and the general public. His work has had four sorts of impact:
Applied psychology research undertaken at City University London has had a major impact on improving high stakes medical selection. Previously doctors were selected by curriculum vitae and unstructured interviews which resulted in bias and discrimination in selection. The research has provided evidence for using new selection methodologies: machine-marked tests (job knowledge and situational judgment tests) and assessment centres, informed by best practice in Occupational Psychology. These apply to all medical specialties (e.g., surgeons and anaesthetists), several healthcare professions (e.g., doctors, nurses, dentists) and selection points of entry (medical school through to specialty roles). Impact includes:
Loughlin's research criticises the drive towards impersonal decision-making procedures across a range of professional practices, aiming to revive approaches placing the cultivation of the virtues, of sound judgement, at the centre of all practical discussion. It has empowered opponents of formalism in management and policy, and scientism in medical practice. This case study concerns Loughlin's identification of the limitations of Evidenced-Based Medicine (EBM), and development of an alternative, evidence-informed approach. Loughlin has communicated his research beyond a narrow academic audience, to a wide range of professional groups, triggering a growing recognition of the need for a humanist, person-centred alternative to EBM. Practitioners and patients alike benefit from the requirement to frame all debates about good practice with reference to the understanding that the parties to the clinical encounter are persons.
The research involved the first uncensored documentation of the contemporary UK military pathway and has been used internationally to raise awareness in professional participants and the general public of the ethical and practical complexities of militarised healthcare.
The impact of this research was evidenced within three distinct> territories: 1. Informing improvements in military and civilian training leading to the creation of standard briefing materials for British deployed forces, medics and civilians to ensure early awareness of the `care pathway'; 2. Establishing additional reference points within contemporary art discourse and reflecting on the role of independent observers of conflict; and 3. Aiding patient recovery and understanding by helping individuals reconcile the profound change that they have undergone through injury and by establishing precedents for a format of comprehensive patient diaries, enabling longer-term understanding of traumatic experience.