Sudden changes in UK immigration law, already in the news for their impact on overseas doctors, have also forced hundreds of students at UK medical schools to reevaluate their career plans. With immediate effect from April 3rd 2006 all doctors who are not residents of EEA countries have only been able to apply for training posts if their potential employer can prove that there are no EEA doctors available for that post. Importantly, this ruling also affects doctors from overseas who graduated from one of the UK's 31 medical schools and completed the 2 year foundation programme.

To fully understand this issue, is is important to understand why UK medical courses attract fee-paying overseas applicants who are usually more than qualified to study a less expensive medical degree in their own country. Most choose to relocate to the UK to study a medical degree which offers a reliable route into high quality postgraduate specialist training unavailable at home. Many intend to spend a decade or more working and training in the NHS before returning home as a specialist. The new legislation, in obliging international students to return home after their foundation years, has undermined the reasonable assumption these students made when starting their degree that they, like their predecessors, would be entitled to work in training posts in the UK.

The argument is not about the relative merits and drawbacks of altering immigration rules in the face of a changing workforce. It is that, if the rules must be changed, students currently studying at UK medical schools should surely be exempted and allowed to enter post-graduate training jobs as they had planned.

Several campaigns have sprung up in the wake of the home office's decision. Leading the fight is the BMA, who are directly lobbying the home office to reverse their decision. Medical students at various universities have held meetings and formed groups opposed to the new rules. A grass roots movement of medical students across the country is pressing for MPs to support an Early Day Motion and get the issue discussed in parliament. This is being led by Glasgow students and their website is here. International students affected by the new rules have been advised to email their embassy in the UK and ask them to lobby the home office on their behalf. An online petition at medschoolsonline.co.uk has over 2000 signatories.

BMA members can email their MP here, but you'll need to log in.

For further reading, please see the following links:

Change to the Immigration Rules for Postgraduate Doctors and Dentists - Department of Health

BMA warns NHS trusts may be discriminating against foreign doctors

Updated JDC statement on doctors requiring permission to work in the UK

Government treatment of overseas doctors condemned

Immigration changes - debate at the juniors' conference 2006