Academic performance in clinical components of the MRCGP – does ethnicity matter?

In this episode, we talk to Professor Niro Siriwardena, Professor of Primary and Pre-hospital Health care at the School of Health and Social Care at the University of Lincoln. Title of paper: Academic performance of ethnic minority versus White doctors in the MRCGP assessment 2016-2021: cross sectional studyAvailable at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2022.0474Differential attainment is widely found in undergraduate and postgraduate medical examinations. It has been suggested that subjective bias due to racial in discrimination clinical skills assessments may be a cause of examination failure for UK trained ethnic minority candidates and international medical graduates. No previous study has examined differential attainment in all components of GP licensing assessments including workplace-based assessment, taking into account scores at selection in GP specialty training. Ethnicity did not reduce the chance of passing GP licensing tests once Sex, place of primary medical qualification, declared disability and selection (multispecialty recruitment assessment) scores were taken into account. Doctors admitted to GP speciality training who are in the lowest MSRA score bands may need additional support during training to maximise their chances of achieving licensing regardless of their ethnicity or other demographic characteristics.