UCL medical students join national response to global pandemic

Over 300 UCL Medical School students were fast-tracked through graduation in April 2020, ready to be made frontline NHS doctors, joining the national effort to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

To help support the national response during the initial height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, it was decided that final-year medical students would be given the opportunity to start their training immediately after their finals and to take up the post of a Foundation Interim Year 1 (FIY1) doctor.

In normal circumstances, UCL’s final year medical students would undertake several months of intensive apprenticeship-style work placements and clinical electives after their exams to prepare them for the front line – before starting work in the NHS in August as FIY1 doctors.

However, answering the request by the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, UCL Medical School graduated its final year students, four months early to enable them to join their future colleagues in the height of the UK pandemic.

Under emergency measures, these students could apply to the General Medical Council for a provisional registration on the medical register, enabling them to become FIY1 doctors. Freeing students up from formal study as soon as they had met the curriculum requirements also meant students could take on a number of other important volunteering roles, from shopping and babysitting for doctors to working in their local GP surgery to provide outreach support to the elderly and isolated.

Professor Deborah Gill, Director of UCL Medical School, said: “This is an altruistic, adaptable and inspirational cohort of medical students who have answered the call for action and are eager to utilise their skills to help the NHS – we could not be any prouder.”