Competition in Medical School

To get into medical school, we are taught to be uber-competitive from a young age. It has never been easy to be a doctor.

Most medical schools require you to have a minimum of 3 As at A-level, as well as high grades at GCSE. You are then expected to compete with others to get work experience placements and extracurricular activities to make you stand out. Then you have to complete your UCAT (and in some cases BMAT), and then carry on competing at your interview. You would think that once you’ve got your foot firmly in the door of university, the competition at medical school ends.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t.

Even at medical school, we carry on competing to pass, to get your F1 jobs, to get the best opportunities and more. This mentality of constantly needing to be on your A-game can be exhausting. It leads to feelings of imposter syndrome when you’re not getting top grades, and anxiety around every exam season. The fear of working hard and just not being “good enough”.

But, this isn’t the case. We are just as worthy with a pass and with a fail. Our worth is not determined by a place in a grade ranking, or a score on a piece of paper.

Competition breeds unhealthy relationships with your peers and within yourself.

Instead of worrying about what the next person got, we should be encouraged by our own achievements, by doing better than your last grade - not someone else’s. Competition and medicine go hand in hand, and it can be demoralising to never feel secure, to always feel like you’re fighting the next person to achieve the future that you’re working so hard for.

Competition can create toxic work environments and can lead to life-long hold-ups about achievements. You can never be happy for yourself or anybody else if you’re constantly fixated and needing to be the best. And this isn’t just a personal problem, it’s a systemic one. Medics are practically bred to be success-hungry and motivated individuals because we don’t have a choice.

Medical school is so competitive for two main reasons:

1. Medicine is Difficult:

Medicine is considered one of the hardest courses at university, and therefore, medical schools want students that they believe can keep up with the workload. Hence, the grade boundaries are so high.

2. Medicine is Attractive:

In 2021, there was a 20.9% year-on-year increase in medical school applicants which is fantastic! It’s great that so many people are wanting to become doctors. However, universities have a limited number of places and resources available. This means that not every applicant can get a place.

These things make getting into medical school really tough. And once we graduate, not everyone will be able to get the foundation job that they want, because there are finite numbers of everything.

Competition can drive us to burning ourselves out in order to do the best we can be. It can also make us desensitized to our own achievements, instead focused on doing better and passing, rather than congratulating ourselves for how well we’ve done.

Medical school is really difficult. It can be really easy to be hyper focused on achieving the highest grades because that is what we’ve been taught to do. You don’t need to. A good doctor isn’t defined by being the top of the class. A good doctor is defined as having clinical competence, being compassionate, and committed to medicine. As long as you are those things, you’re doing the best you can.

Passing your exams is enough to show that you have all the information you need to be a competent doctor. You don't need to and shouldnt strive for perfection at the detriment to your own mental health.

Focus on competence, not competition.

If you want to read more about competition at medical school, there’s a blog post here. It highlights how as medics, we are part of a wider team, and should be taught that from the start, rather than competing with each other.

As always, if you want to share any of your experiences at medical school with us, email us at welfarehub.nottsmed@gmail.com. If you’re struggling with any other issues, have a look at our website to find some resources that may help you.