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% of Medical Students thrown out

I was just wondering if anyone could shed some insight into what percentage of medical students are actually thrown out for failing? And a few more questions:
1) what percentage would be thrown out in first year?
2) will these amounts be roughly similar over all UK universities or does it vary wildly?

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Original post by joker12345
I was just wondering if anyone could shed some insight into what percentage of medical students are actually thrown out for failing? And a few more questions:
1) what percentage would be thrown out in first year?
2) will these amounts be roughly similar over all UK universities or does it vary wildly?


1) In my year group (~180 students) at the end of first year: one person was told to leave, one person chose to leave, and about half a dozen people repeated the year.

2) Probably - I'm no expert but I think if a medical school were to kick out a significant percentage of a cohort, the affiliated university and probably the GMC would want to know what's going on.

It's not common for people to be kicked out of med school. It certainly happens, but the chances are that once you've got in, you'll finish the degree and qualify. It just doesn't feel that way before the exams :wink:
Repeating the year, changing subject or dropping out entirely is unusual, and when it does happen its usually associated with motivation issues from what i've seen.
We started year one as 170 odd and we've lost at least 30-40 people since then. Most are in lower years though, rather than totally dropping out.

One person never arrived uni, and one went home on the first day :lolwut:
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Original post by nexttime
Repeating the year, changing subject or dropping out entirely is unusual, and when it does happen its usually associated with motivation issues from what i've seen.


Interesting, I thought it'd be a good 10% or so of the year. Yeah, you're probably right about the motivation issues.
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Original post by xXxBaby-BooxXx
We started year one as 170 odd and we've lost at least 30-40 people since then. Most are in lower years though, rather than totally dropping out.

One person never arrived uni, and one went home on the first day :lolwut:


Wow, that's quite a lot, it's like 20%! Do you mind me asking where you're studying and what year?
Oh, I see, we aren't usually allowed to resit the year - if we fail summer resits we're out.
Original post by joker12345
Wow, that's quite a lot, it's like 20%! Do you mind me asking where you're studying and what year?
Oh, I see, we aren't usually allowed to resit the year - if we fail summer resits we're out.


UEA and I'm just finishing my 4th year. If we fail summer resits we're technically "out" but most manage to successfully appeal for another chance.
Original post by joker12345
Wow, that's quite a lot, it's like 20%! Do you mind me asking where you're studying and what year?
Oh, I see, we aren't usually allowed to resit the year - if we fail summer resits we're out.


As far as i'm aware resitting the year is never an 'official' thing - it happens after discussion with the med school/welfare people when people look like they're about to fail/they had some particular problems in the year and can't catch up.
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Original post by Democracy
1) In my year group (~180 students) at the end of first year: one person was told to leave, one person chose to leave, and about half a dozen people repeated the year.

2) Probably - I'm no expert but I think if a medical school were to kick out a significant percentage of a cohort, the affiliated university and probably the GMC would want to know what's going on.

It's not common for people to be kicked out of med school. It certainly happens, but the chances are that once you've got in, you'll finish the degree and qualify. It just doesn't feel that way before the exams :wink:


Oh okay, that's not so bad. I'm surprised at how many reset the year, I thought that was really rare and just for extenuating circumstances!
Yeah true, that makes sense. Haha I hope so, I have to do a module resit in the summer (passed the finals but I failed an earlier module) and am pretty worried I won't pass it
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Original post by nexttime
As far as i'm aware resitting the year is never an 'official' thing - it happens after discussion with the med school/welfare people when people look like they're about to fail/they had some particular problems in the year and can't catch up.


Oh, I see, so you're saying it's not usually after they fail but more just before exams? And by problems do you mean generally struggled or extenuating circumstances, like family problems and things?
Original post by joker12345
Oh, I see, so you're saying it's not usually after they fail but more just before exams? And by problems do you mean generally struggled or extenuating circumstances, like family problems and things?


A bit of both I think. Mental illness like depression would be a very common one.
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There was only one person who got kicked out for failing exams (after resitting) in first year (out of 140) and that was because of lack of interest in the degree. But there were about 5 who left for health reasons/ because they didn't feel the degree was for them. The people who left for health reasons were allowed to rejoin in the first year though and they seem to be pretty lenient with appeals on examinations which let you repeat the year from what I've heard.
Also, this year it seems 140 people graduated out of ~150- which seems pretty good as you are allowed to repeat 5th year if you fail anyway.
For your second question I've heard the London unis apparently have much higher dropout rates.
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During my time at uni I've only known of 2 people getting thrown out and that was because they forged signatures in order to complete a part of their logbooks and got caught because the patients they were supposed to visit ended up ringing the GP to say they never came and the GP told the uni etc etc
So that was just stupidity really.

Quite a few people do resit years though. It is meant to be hard to resit a year but really people just say they were depressed or had anxiety and the school accepts it.
We had about 30 people fail first year. I think as a group we scared the medical school actually, but we weren't thick, they set SUPER bitchy exams. I surprised myself by passing!
Depends on the school.

Since I've started (I'm a fifth year now) probably only 2 people have been "thrown out". Probably around 5 who have left as they did not want to continue. When people fail a year they tend to repeat. Apparently the rule is "you cannot fail the same year twice". This would mean it could take you 10 years to qualify! But I doubt it has ever happened, and I am sure they are usually asked to leave before this point. Also if you fail fifth year you just don't get your degree.

A lot of this information for your particular school should be open and available for you to see. It is good to know these sorts of policies in case you ever were in a situation where you could fail the year.
Birmingham has probably changed considerably by now, but 12 years ago when I was doing preclinical, we lost a considerable number of our year group. There seemed to perpetually be a large number of people externally resitting first year in particular, so the year group changed dramatically over the 5 years with losing people to resits, gaining people who had successfully resat from the year before, losing and gaining intercalators, GEM, maxfax dentists... I don't have any figures on how many people actually left the course, and clearly as Birmingham is a large medical school (~350 first year when I started I think), proportionally there are going to be more students who leave than the smaller medical schools. I would estimate that 20 or so were required to withdraw at the end of first year, and many more had to take a year out and externally resit. And I'm sure there were others who left for personal, non-exam failure reasons. But in each subsequent year, there were fewer and fewer people who left due to exam failure.
Original post by seaholme
We had about 30 people fail first year. I think as a group we scared the medical school actually, but we weren't thick, they set SUPER bitchy exams. I surprised myself by passing!


Wow, thats a lot. Out of how many?
I haven't spoken to all of my year group yet, so I've no idea if anyone has failed- however, everyone I have spoken to is through to Year 2. The year above us had two people fail the Year 1, which they retook with us.
Original post by navarre
I haven't spoken to all of my year group yet, so I've no idea if anyone has failed- however, everyone I have spoken to is through to Year 2. The year above us had two people fail the Year 1, which they retook with us.


Wow, that's a really small number. Do you mind me asking what medical school you're at?
Just to let people know, I believe the guidelines have changed for dentists and medics in that pre-2013 entry you could retake the year if you failed summer resits, but 2013 entry onwards aren't allowed to retake the year.

Noticed some of the older medics don't seem to be aware of the change as it doesn't affect them (I only found out as I know a few of the people in the year below me).

So I imagine more people might lose their place now, but then on the flip side less people will fail summer resits if they know it is their final chance.

It's definitely not the blood-bath some people imagine where like 20% of people lose their place in first year though. :tongue: It's literally like only the bottom 5% have to resit, and of that 5% usually everybody passes the resits. At least in my experience anyway.

I would say if you do the work you pass. :smile:

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