Preclinical teachers and preclinical students

A survey in 1974 in Manchester University medical school of the preclinical teachers showed that they thought that the motives of students in studying medicine were not what they should have been. Medically qualified and non-medically qualified teachers agreed about the importance of nine suggested motives, but there were highly significant differences between the two groups about the motives they felt to be present in students. The non-medically qualified were very much more likely to see students as concerned with the financial and social rewards of medicine, and more likely to doubt students' desires to be professionally competeant or to help individuals. Some anecdotal evidence possibly throws light on these findings, which may have serious implications for teaching as non-medically qualified staff make up an increasing proportion of preclinical teachers.