Final-year students forced to commute for two hours a day

Final-year students at the University of Wales College of Medicine are being forced to commute for two hours a day because a change in the medical curriculum means their normal hospitals are overrun with trainee doctors.

Students have complained that the commute is affecting their ability to revise.

Now the student committee of the British Medical Association is to conduct a survey of teaching and living accommodation at hospitals across the country in an effort to discover which universities are able to accommodate their medical students properly.

In the past few years, integrated medical degrees, in which students enter hospitals from day one, have replaced traditional pre-clinical and clinical courses at medical schools across the country.

Such degrees were introduced at the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff three years ago, but since January it has meant a clash between third-year medics on day placements in hospitals and fifth years.

Leslie Rees, registrar at the medical school, said the problem was temporary and had come about because of the problems accommodating the two curricula.