The shifting landscape: how undergraduate students have changed

Reforms to medical education and the selection of students into medical training around the mid-20th century, were largely the result of four major events: the centralisation of student number planning; adopting some of the recommendations of the Good enough Committee; the establishment of the National Health Service as an employer to new graduates; and the introduction of minimum standards of school leaving qualifications. This chapter outlines the main drivers for change in the medical student population over the last 60 years, and how this is reflected in the student population seen on the MB/BS programme at the University of East Anglia (UEA) today. In the 1940s the role of women began to change; societal hierarchies were crumbling, heralding a change to the admittance of females to medical school. Since the late 1940s the average age of entrants to medical school has changed markedly.