Exploring UK medical school differences: the MedDifs study of selection, teaching, student and F1 perceptions, postgraduate outcomes and fitness to practise.
McManus IC., Harborne AC., Horsfall HL., Joseph T., Smith DT., Marshall-Andon T., Samuels R., Kearsley JW., Abbas N., Baig H., Beecham J., Benons N., Caird C., Clark R., Cope T., Coultas J., Debenham L., Douglas S., Eldridge J., Hughes-Gooding T., Jakubowska A., Jones O., Lancaster E., MacMillan C., McAllister R., Merzougui W., Phillips B., Phillips S., Risk O., Sage A., Sooltangos A., Spencer R., Tajbakhsh R., Adesalu O., Aganin I., Ahmed A., Aiken K., Akeredolu A-S., Alam I., Ali A., Anderson R., Ang JJ., Anis FS., Aojula S., Arthur C., Ashby A., Ashraf A., Aspinall E., Awad M., Yahaya A-MA., Badhrinarayanan S., Bandyopadhyay S., Barnes S., Bassey-Duke D., Boreham C., Braine R., Brandreth J., Carrington Z., Cashin Z., Chatterjee S., Chawla M., Chean CS., Clements C., Clough R., Coulthurst J., Curry L., Daniels VC., Davies S., Davis R., De Waal H., Desai N., Douglas H., Druce J., Ejamike L-N., Esere M., Eyre A., Fazmin IT., Fitzgerald-Smith S., Ford V., Freeston S., Garnett K., General W., Gilbert H., Gowie Z., Grafton-Clarke C., Gudka K., Gumber L., Gupta R., Harlow C., Harrington A., Heaney A., Ho WHS., Holloway L., Hood C., Houghton E., Houshangi S., Howard E., Human B., Hunter H., Hussain I., Hussain S., Jackson-Taylor RT., Jacob-Ramsdale B., Janjuha R., Jawad S., Jelani M., Johnston D., Jones M., Kalidindi S., Kalsi S., Kalyanasundaram A., Kane A., Kaur S., Al-Othman OK., Khan Q., Khullar S., Kirkland P., Lawrence-Smith H., Leeson C., Lenaerts JER., Long K., Lubbock S., Burrell JMD., Maguire R., Mahendran P., Majeed S., Malhotra PS., Mandagere V., Mantelakis A., McGovern S., Mosuro A., Moxley A., Mustoe S., Myers S., Nadeem K., Nasseri R., Newman T., Nzewi R., Ogborne R., Omatseye J., Paddock S., Parkin J., Patel M., Pawar S., Pearce S., Penrice S., Purdy J., Ramjan R., Randhawa R., Rasul U., Raymond-Taggert E., Razey R., Razzaghi C., Reel E., Revell EJ., Rigbye J., Rotimi O., Said A., Sanders E., Sangal P., Grandal NS., Shah A., Shah RA., Shotton O., Sims D., Smart K., Smith MA., Smith N., Sopian AS., South M., Speller J., Syer TJ., Ta NH., Tadross D., Thompson B., Trevett J., Tyler M., Ullah R., Utukuri M., Vadera S., Van Den Tooren H., Venturini S., Vijayakumar A., Vine M., Wellbelove Z., Wittner L., Yong GHK., Ziyada F., Devine OP.
BACKGROUND: Medical schools differ, particularly in their teaching, but it is unclear whether such differences matter, although influential claims are often made. The Medical School Differences (MedDifs) study brings together a wide range of measures of UK medical schools, including postgraduate performance, fitness to practise issues, specialty choice, preparedness, satisfaction, teaching styles, entry criteria and institutional factors. METHOD: Aggregated data were collected for 50 measures across 29 UK medical schools. Data include institutional history (e.g. rate of production of hospital and GP specialists in the past), curricular influences (e.g. PBL schools, spend per student, staff-student ratio), selection measures (e.g. entry grades), teaching and assessment (e.g. traditional vs PBL, specialty teaching, self-regulated learning), student satisfaction, Foundation selection scores, Foundation satisfaction, postgraduate examination performance and fitness to practise (postgraduate progression, GMC sanctions). Six specialties (General Practice, Psychiatry, Anaesthetics, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Internal Medicine, Surgery) were examined in more detail. RESULTS: Medical school differences are stable across time (median alpha = 0.835). The 50 measures were highly correlated, 395 (32.2%) of 1225 correlations being significant with p