Medical students concerned about debts and their futures

Student BMJ is celebrating it's 20th anniversary as one of the leading international peer reviewed journals written by and for medical students. Since its launch in 1992, Student BMJ continues to support medical students and has 24,000 online visitors each month. In addition, the journal also has a monthly print readership of 21,000. In April 2012, the Student BMJ asked their readers and BMJ what they thought was the most vital change in the past two decades to medical education. Poll results showed that 40% of clinicians and educators reported that teaching methods and resources were the more important change, whereas student and junior doctors believed that job competition, once qualified (24%), and quality of teaching (21%) were the leading challenges to their education. Competition to get into medical school and student debt were also top concerns for both groups. Neil Chanchlani, Editor of Student BMJ, said "It's no surprise that debt looms high on the list of concerns for trainees." In 2012, university tuitions fees in the UK have increased up to £9,000 a year (€11,000; $14,000). Furthermore, students in the U.S. and Canada are spending, on average, $20,000 more per year on tuition than in 1995. Even though applications to medical schools have increased since the 1990s, competition ratios to enter medical schools have remained stable at about 2.19 applications per place in the U.S., and 2.3 applications per place in the UK. Chanchlani explained: "We've come a long way, but we want to go further. As we look forward to the next 20 years, we anticipate constant changes to the medical curriculum, workforce planning, clinical practice, and student life. We want to find new ways to support tomorrow's doctors, so that they learn to make rational decisions about diagnosis and treatment, to design and manage high quality systems of care as well as treating individual patients, and above all, to practice medicine with integrity and compassion."