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Differential Attainment Within the Specialised Foundation Programme: Creating an Accessible Mentorship Scheme to Increase Diversity Within Academic Medicine
The Specialised Foundation Programme (SFP), formerly the Academic Foundation Programme, is a highly competitive pathway into academic medicine. There is minimal information available on the demographics of those who apply to the programme, how it scores its applicants and who is successful, making i...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Cureus
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10600640/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37899901 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.47700 |
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author | Salem, Joseph Robertson, Stephen Paul, Nadine Balagamage, Alokya Awan, Humza |
author_facet | Salem, Joseph Robertson, Stephen Paul, Nadine Balagamage, Alokya Awan, Humza |
author_sort | Salem, Joseph |
collection | PubMed |
description | The Specialised Foundation Programme (SFP), formerly the Academic Foundation Programme, is a highly competitive pathway into academic medicine. There is minimal information available on the demographics of those who apply to the programme, how it scores its applicants and who is successful, making it difficult to assess whether the application process is accessible to all students and promotes a diverse workforce. There are varying levels of support available with coaching, either geographically ring-fenced by universities or available through paid courses. As a result, there is a risk of differential attainment between students who have financial constraints or attend universities where the SFP is less promoted. The aim of the study was to assess student opinion on barriers to the SFP and academic medicine and the demand for the creation of a national, free-to-access SFP mentorship programme to reduce differential attainment amongst student cohorts. Students in the programme received mentorship, peer learning and scheduled teaching events over a six-month period. Surveys were distributed pre- and post-course, and qualitative and quantitative analysis was conducted. Of the respondents, 76% felt that medical schools provided insufficient information on SFP, 31% did not feel financially stable at university and 53% stated that they would not enrol if a cost was present. Applicants were tested on pre- and post-course confidence, all of which showed an increase in mean Likert (1-5) scoring post-mentorship. Financial, institutional and geographical barriers to students applying to the programme were identified. Whilst further research is required to better understand the barriers to academic medicine, national, free-to-access mentorship may effectively reduce differential attainment and improve accessibility amongst students. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10600640 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Cureus |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-106006402023-10-27 Differential Attainment Within the Specialised Foundation Programme: Creating an Accessible Mentorship Scheme to Increase Diversity Within Academic Medicine Salem, Joseph Robertson, Stephen Paul, Nadine Balagamage, Alokya Awan, Humza Cureus Other The Specialised Foundation Programme (SFP), formerly the Academic Foundation Programme, is a highly competitive pathway into academic medicine. There is minimal information available on the demographics of those who apply to the programme, how it scores its applicants and who is successful, making it difficult to assess whether the application process is accessible to all students and promotes a diverse workforce. There are varying levels of support available with coaching, either geographically ring-fenced by universities or available through paid courses. As a result, there is a risk of differential attainment between students who have financial constraints or attend universities where the SFP is less promoted. The aim of the study was to assess student opinion on barriers to the SFP and academic medicine and the demand for the creation of a national, free-to-access SFP mentorship programme to reduce differential attainment amongst student cohorts. Students in the programme received mentorship, peer learning and scheduled teaching events over a six-month period. Surveys were distributed pre- and post-course, and qualitative and quantitative analysis was conducted. Of the respondents, 76% felt that medical schools provided insufficient information on SFP, 31% did not feel financially stable at university and 53% stated that they would not enrol if a cost was present. Applicants were tested on pre- and post-course confidence, all of which showed an increase in mean Likert (1-5) scoring post-mentorship. Financial, institutional and geographical barriers to students applying to the programme were identified. Whilst further research is required to better understand the barriers to academic medicine, national, free-to-access mentorship may effectively reduce differential attainment and improve accessibility amongst students. Cureus 2023-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC10600640/ /pubmed/37899901 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.47700 Text en Copyright © 2023, Salem et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Other Salem, Joseph Robertson, Stephen Paul, Nadine Balagamage, Alokya Awan, Humza Differential Attainment Within the Specialised Foundation Programme: Creating an Accessible Mentorship Scheme to Increase Diversity Within Academic Medicine |
title | Differential Attainment Within the Specialised Foundation Programme: Creating an Accessible Mentorship Scheme to Increase Diversity Within Academic Medicine |
title_full | Differential Attainment Within the Specialised Foundation Programme: Creating an Accessible Mentorship Scheme to Increase Diversity Within Academic Medicine |
title_fullStr | Differential Attainment Within the Specialised Foundation Programme: Creating an Accessible Mentorship Scheme to Increase Diversity Within Academic Medicine |
title_full_unstemmed | Differential Attainment Within the Specialised Foundation Programme: Creating an Accessible Mentorship Scheme to Increase Diversity Within Academic Medicine |
title_short | Differential Attainment Within the Specialised Foundation Programme: Creating an Accessible Mentorship Scheme to Increase Diversity Within Academic Medicine |
title_sort | differential attainment within the specialised foundation programme: creating an accessible mentorship scheme to increase diversity within academic medicine |
topic | Other |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10600640/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37899901 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.47700 |
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