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My first study of medical students was carried out in 1974, while I myself was a medical student in Birmingham, studying my fellow medical students in Birmingham. That was followed by another study in Birmingham, this time properly longitudinal in part, begun while I was actually a PhD student in Cambridge. The three 'main' cohort studies -- the 1981, 1986 and 1991 studies -- could not have been carried out without the enthusiastic support, encouragement, practical assistance and intellectual collaboration of Professor Peter Richards, who was then Dean of St Mary's Hospital Medical School.
Click below to find out more about each of the studies, as well as the Westminster Medical School follow-up, a longitudinal study carried out on behalf of the General Medical Council, a large study of would-be medical school applicants, and a series of studies of candidates taking the MRCP(UK).
| Study | Brief description |
| 2009 follow-up studies | Current follow-up of the 1991, 1986 and 1981 cohorts, and the 1990 and 1992 UCMSM applicants. |
| 1991 cohort (1990 applicants) | Study of applicants who applied to five English medical schools in the autumn of 1990 for admission to medical school in October 1991. Subsequently followed up as final year students, PRHOs, and as SHOs/SpRs/GPs in Dec 2002. |
| 1986 cohort (1985 applicants) | Study of applicants who applied to St Mary's Hospital Medical School in the autumn of 1985 for admission to medical school in October 1986. Followed up as final year students. |
| 1981 cohort (1980 applicants) | Study of applicants who applied to St Mary's Hospital Medical School in the autumn of 1980 for admission to medical school in October 1981. Followed up as final year students. |
| UCMSM applicant studies (1990 and 1992 applicants) | Study of applicants who applied to University College and Middlesex School of Medicine for admission in 1990 and 1992. |
| Birmingham cohorts 1977 to 1981 | Transverse study of Birmingham medical students in all five years in autumn 1977. New entrants were then studied in autumn 1978, 1979 and 1980. Finally, all five years of medical students were studied in autumn 1981, so that the entrants in 1977 to 1980 were followed up from one to four years later. |
| Westminster study | Between 1975 and 1982, Dr Peter Fleming collected psychometric test data on all clinical students entering the Westminster Hospital Medical School. A brief follow up using the Medical Register only was carried out in 1989 but it was realised that a longer-term follow up was needed. A full questionnaire-based follow-up was carried out in January 2002. |
| PRHO study 1976 | A simple but politically very effective study that looked at the perceptions of the group of PRHOs who had graduated from Birmingham at the same time as myself. |
| Birmingham study 1974 | A simple transverse study in May 1974 of medical students in all five years at the University of Birmingham medical school. |
| CHMS selection analysis | Study commissioned by the Council of Heads of Medical Schools (now the Medical Schools Council) to assess whether 1996-1997 applicants from ethnical minorites were disadvantaged during medical school selection process. |
| GMC study | Random stratified survey in November 1997 of 800 UK doctors in a study of attitudes to the GMC performance procedures. The cohort was subsequently follow-up in September 2000. |
| MRCP(UK) studies | A series of studies analysing data obtained from candidates taking the MRCP(UK) examination. |
| Medlink study | Survey of 2867 students attending the Medlink conference in December 2003 for sixth-form students considering applying to medical school. |
| PMETB analysis | A multi-level modelling of some of the data from the PMETB 2006 National Trainee Survey, which had over 24,000 respondents. |