BMI too low for med school

It's not discrimination if reasonable adjustments can't be made. If a medical school has good reason to believe your ill health could be exaccerbated by medical school, or affect your learning or your future patients, then they can refuse to accept you. That's not discrimination, that's just following GMC guidelines.

I am a medicine applicant for 2015 entry, and I have two offers.

One of these (my insurance choice) invited me for an appointment with occupational health, and I was told that it was "routine for my cohort"- I was therefore very upset to find out that this was not the case. In fact, it was because they were intending to reject me from the medical school if my BMI was still below 17, as it was on my medical form. I have had an eating disorder in the past, but have increased my weight by 6kg since Christmas.

Luckily, my BMI came out as above this level, but I am still very upset. I feel like I was being targeted, and invited there under false pretences. I was also asked to send a copy of a letter from the psychologist who last assessed me, to "corroborate my story", before they will deem my assessment acceptable.

Could they have actually rejected me? I was always told that medical schools conduct these appointments to offer support to their students, but this particular university says that their policy has always been to reject applicants with a BMI below 17. I realise that there is a "potential risk to patients", but they surely should have set out this policy earlier in the application process? It feels like they are discriminating against me.

Thoughts??

Except that a blanket policy of 'under a BMI of 17', ignoring documented improvement to the applicant's condition, would be difficult to justify in that way.

It's not discrimination if reasonable adjustments can't be made. If a medical school has good reason to believe your ill health could be exaccerbated by medical school, or affect your learning or your future patients, then they can refuse to accept you. That's not discrimination, that's just following GMC guidelines.

A BMI a under 17 puts the applicant at risk of serious health problems in the short term,

and shows they aren't fully recovered from their eating disorder (the diagnosis won't be lifted until they're a healthy weight

Medical schools don't accept anyone with these risks;

They obviously want to choose the people most likely to make it to the end of the course, and practice as a doctor.

Having anorexia can haul you up in front of a fitness to practice committee at any stage of your career.

Nonsense.

The proportion of the applying population that has a history of depression, diagnosed dyslexia, dyspraxia, other medical conditions... if you want to make the 'oh you might not make it through' argument you've got a lot of people to exclude. 'Reasonable adjustment' includes absorbing a risk that students might become ill. A blanket policy of 'BMI<17' without any context is totally unjustifiable.



The biggest risk is that you lose further weight for most people. There are a good few people out there for who that is their normal BMI. That would be a high BMI for a tall distance runner for instance.



Gross over-simplification. It might be.



Yes they do. All the time. There are med students with schizophrenia, serious disabilities, life limiting illnesses.



Its a consideration but its not really how it works wrt disability. There is no difference between arguing that a depressed person might waste money by dropping out, and a wheelchair-bound person would waste money by requiring ramps. Whatever your personal opinion, the Disabilities Discrimination Act has decided that making reasonable adjustment is a requirement. As such you have to take each case on its own merit and that is clearly not done by just measuring BMI.



It might, but it probably won't. More likely is that if you were to deteriorate your friends, family and colleagues will get you help and you might have to take some time off. You make it sound like being ill is a disciplinary offence.

I am a medicine applicant for 2015 entry, and I have two offers.

One of these (my insurance choice) invited me for an appointment with occupational health, and I was told that it was "routine for my cohort"- I was therefore very upset to find out that this was not the case. In fact, it was because they were intending to reject me from the medical school if my BMI was still below 17, as it was on my medical form. I have had an eating disorder in the past, but have increased my weight by 6kg since Christmas.

Luckily, my BMI came out as above this level, but I am still very upset. I feel like I was being targeted, and invited there under false pretences. I was also asked to send a copy of a letter from the psychologist who last assessed me, to "corroborate my story", before they will deem my assessment acceptable.

Could they have actually rejected me? I was always told that medical schools conduct these appointments to offer support to their students, but this particular university says that their policy has always been to reject applicants with a BMI below 17. I realise that there is a "potential risk to patients", but they surely should have set out this policy earlier in the application process? It feels like they are discriminating against me.

Thoughts??