Cheating at medical school

British Medical Journal, Feb 3, 2001

[1] Smith R. Cheating at medical school. BMJ 2000;321:398. (12 August.)

Are we all cheats?

EDITOR--It was manifestly wrong for the medical student to take the Oxford handbook into the examination.[1] It is clearly wrong to seek to gain unfair advantage in an examination, whose rules and regulations are laid out. I would, however, be interested to know whether the former medical students who have been fulsome in their condemnation of this individual on bmj.com[2] can claim to have never seen a multiple choice question from a past paper, received some hot tip for the written paper, or sought some knowledge of the cases in the clinical examinations from those who have just completed their assessments.

I feel confident in being able to guarantee that every medical school graduate in the past 20 years has transgressed in one of these ways, either as a student or as a doctor preparing for postgraduate examinations.

The board of examiners had to exercise wisdom. Their decision, as is to be expected, has not pleased everyone but was their prerogative. It was also Richard Smith's prerogative to air the issue in public. Is it too much to hope that the circumstances of this case can be used to move towards a more equitable examination system rather than the witch hunt that it seems to have become?

Are we all cheats?

Phillip Bennett-Richards general practitioner London E3 3HE PhillipJBR@aol.com

[1] Smith R. Cheating at medical school. BMJ 2000;321:398. (12 August.)

[2] Electronic responses. Cheating at medical school, bmj.com;321 (www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7258/ 398#responses; accessed 15 Jan 2001).

Cheating also happens on the large scale

EDITOR--As recent graduates from medical school, we would like to describe a recent case of cheating on a much larger scale than that described by Smith.[1]

Less than 12 hours before our first clinical examination we received a telephone call from a fellow finalist claiming to have a full list of the stations making up the objective structure clinical examination. Two students had seen the mark sheets when making inquiries at the examination office two days previously and had decided to disseminate the information.

What to do with the information proved to be difficult. Our consciences did not rest easy. Undoubtedly some candidates would have known the content of the examination for over two days and were confident of their sources' reliability. What also bothered us, however, was that many students would not have received a telephone call at all.

The details we had received proved accurate. From conversations after the examination we learnt that many students had selectively revised and practised the subjects which they knew would be examined from the details they had received two days before (and the last 48 hours' work do make a difference).

Around half of the year was awarded a merit or distinction, awards that are given only to students gaining a merit in one of the two clinical examinations: the objective structure clinical examination and the long case. The number of merits and distinctions awarded this year was noticeably higher than in recent years.