Supporting students with mental health conditions: new guidance for medical schools

[Jill Anderson]

The General Medical Council and the Medical Schools Council have launched new guidance to help medical schools provide advice and support to medical students who are experiencing mental health difficulties. We have developed the guidance in response to requests from medical schools for more advice and support on this subject.

 

The new guidance highlights the steps that medical schools can take to promote good mental health and wellbeing in their students. It explores what schools can do to encourage students to come forward and seek help when they need it. It also looks at the types of support which schools may wish to provide for their students.

                                                                                                                                                         

The guidance is available on the General Medical Council and Medical Schools Council websites. 

[Andrea McGoverin]

Thank you Jill for bringing the fact that there is new research and a change in guidlines to med schools as a result re supporting students with mental health issues. It made for interesting reading and I have circulated it to colleagues. We still do a session on ones own mental health for new medical students, set within communicationh skills at Leeds, which was designed by people who had used mental health services. We knew that medics often tried to hide (and were sometimes even advised to by peers in the past) their own mental health issues. The service users said, "We do not want to be looked after by doctors who do not know how to look after themselves".