Number of lecturers “nearly halved”, say academics

25 June 2010

THE number of clinical professors and lecturers has nearly halved as medical students have doubled in 10 years, medical academic leaders have claimed.

New figures from the Medical Schools Council (MSC) suggest a one per cent rise in clinical professors and lecturers in 2008-2009. But the British Medical Association’s Medical Academic Staff Committee (MASC) said this figure must be put in context.

While the MSC said staffing levels in the UK had increased for the third year in a row to more than 3000 full-time equivalent posts – numbers were still down 12 per cent compared to 2000.

The BMA News reported that figures suggest sustained investment in early career grades has allowed more medical trainees to become clinical academics and younger clinical academics are being drawn from a more diverse population in terms of gender, age and ethnicity.

But there are concerns that women are under-represented in senior positions – only 14 per cent of all clinical professors – and that staffing in anaesthetics, paediatrics and child health, pathology and psychiatry are low.