Medical Apprenticeships

Personally I disagree with the idea of an apprenticeship. The entire point of medical school is to prepare you with standard skills required, as well as an overall understanding of the human anatomy, pharmacology etc. The foundation years are there to help a doctor adapt to a medical environment, whilst they learn on the job. The fact that an apprenticeship is basically a couple of foundation years, except the individual has no basis of medical knowledge, will still be treating and meeting patients, and having to balance what basically is a full-time job as well as medical school studies seems a little bit... too optimistic and unrealistic. The fact that this also bypasses academic requirements such as the UCAT and A levels seems to be a little bit superficial. We already have contextual requirements in place for traditional medical schools, which do widen access, so I'm not sure how this helps overall. And sure, interpersonal skills are important, (some would argue to be more important than academic rigour) but if I were a patient I would likely prefer my doctor to have a better academic training than one with arguably less. With the UKMLA I'm not entirely sure how this might pan out, since 50% of our workforce isn't even trained in the UK anymore so this just further complicates things. This also just further stretches hospital resources, instead of boosting them. An apprentice new on the job will likely require so much extra attention and supervision, in practice I think that just reduces the ability of a doctor/nurse/HCP to do their jobs. Of course, there are merits to the other side of the argument, but if you think otherwise, I'm easily persuadable so please prove me wrong!

That looks like a lot of words to say that you have decided to attack this mode of delivery of a Medical Degree despite the fact the NHS has decades of expeirence with HCP education using similar models of Delivery, and that in many cases this mode of delivery is seen as the preferred method of delivery due to the integration of theory and practice and the integration of the srtudent into the provider organisation ,.

OK, I respect that. Do you mind clarifying in which cases this is seen as the preferred method of delivery? I personally think that a medical doctor differs from other aspects of the healthcare profession in terms of the scientific basis and knowledge required as well as some other skills required, both practical and emotional (although I do acknowledge that nurses and a number of others do need very good scientific backgrounds and unique characteristics), which is why this one in particular just doesn't seem to roll particularly well with me.