BAPIO (British Association of Physician of Indian Origin) has alleged bias in the Clinical Skills Exam conducted by the RCGP as part of evaluation of GP training and as per sources is planning for a legal challenge to get it corrected . According to the BAPIO, International Medical Graduates (IMG) in GP training are a facing catastrophe in their career as a result of what is described as a the ‘huge’ differential pass rates between them and the UK graduates in the new MRCGP assessment introduced in 2010.
“ MRCGP is an exit examination. This means that having trained under constant supervision and having had good annual progress reports, one then appears for this final test to be able to independently practice as a General Practioner. The examination as a whole and the CSA component in particular has a huge difference in pass rate between candidates of various ethnicities. UK white local graduates have typically very high pass rates and candidates who are non-white have a significantly lower pass rate. For instance UK white local graduates have a first attempt pass rate of 96.1% compared to UK Black local graduates who have a first attempt pass rate of 66.7% and non-UK South Asian International Medical Graduates have a first time pass rate of 36.7%. It is of great concern to note that all trainees who have progressed satisfactorily for 3 years of training with detailed evaluation of their training by their supervisors and deaneries have such a high differential of passing their exit exam where they have a seven times higher chance of failing than their local colleagues.
Many doctors and members of the public see this result at best as a product of a faulty examination method and at worst as racial discrimination.
Many GP trainees have exhausted the number of attempts available for them at the MRCGP examination and then have been ‘released’ from the training program. This means at the end of three years of training and education due to a possibly flawed examination system IMG and BME doctors are left with no career prospects in their chosen field of work.They continue to endure immense strain on their family, personal anxiety and stress, and financial ruin having spent tens of thousands of pounds on exam fees and courses.Training a doctor to this level costs the UK tax payer £488, 730 per doctor which seems a profligate waste of resource. “
Data from BAPIO WEBSITE (within quotes)
