What can the BMA do for you?
The British Medical Association (BMA) is the largest trade union for medical students with 20,000 student members, and a growing 200,000 total BMA membership. You may have heard more of them recently due to the strike action taken by (junior) doctors, and even more recently by senior consultants across the UK. But you may not know what they can do for you as medical students?
For non-medical Barts and The London students, there are many other unions that may be more relevant to you, such as the British Dental Association (BDA). So make sure to research those to find out more about the resources that are more tailored to your course, so they can support you while you study with us!
The BMA helps doctors and medical students to improve their work lives and studies using their representative structure and many full time-staff to support on national and local issues. You can get involved in being one of these representatives for Barts and The London when the medical school’s BMA rep and deputy rep elections re-open yearly, so make sure to follow @BMABartsLondon on Instagram to find out more.
For Students
It’s tough being a medical student having to learn so much, so fast, and sometimes very tricky information to get your head around. The BMA has thousands of learning resources through the BMA library such as e-Learning and Journals, and ClinicalKey as a medical search engine. They’ve also developed other interesting resources all students should check out such as their speciality explorer that uses a quiz to help identify clinical specialities you may be interested in and explains how you can start on your pathway to each. Lastly, is their wellbeing support such as BMA’s 24/7 counselling and peer support service that is open to all students (including non-members). It is important to know you can reach out to them confidentially and at any time to receive support; they have seen for many years first-hand what it is like to be a medical student and are there to help.
An update on the current industrial action
Strikes across the UK have been organised as (junior) doctors, and consultants currently (as of writing) in England are continuing in their aim to improve the workplace for all of you planning in the future to work in the NHS.
For students, this has so far had limited impact to our studies. During these days of industrial action, the medical school in the previous academic year have provided alternative teaching and our students have not been attending placement. This was under the advice of the medical school, and not BMA as medical student BMA members are not part of the official strike mandate. Many of our students were spending time on the picket lines outside our local hospitals side-by-side with doctors in support of the strikes. Students were making up chants, decorating signs, and our own BLSA provided a rest stop to those participating.
The Future
There has never been a more interesting time to be part of a union, so we hope in some time throughout your time at Barts and The London you utilise the great resource that the BMA has to offer.
