Need a GP? The sociology graduate will see you now!

MINISTERS are recruiting arts graduates to train as doctors to fill gaps in Scotland’s crisis-hit NHS.

Arts and science degree graduates will be allowed to apply for a new medical course that will see them qualify as doctors within four years.

The scheme is a radical change from the traditionally tough entrance demands for medical school hopefuls.

Instead of the long-standing requirements for a raft of Highers at A grade, the new course will accept applications from graduates with a first-class or upper second-class honours degree in ‘any discipline’.

The Scottish Government is seeking to recruit those who did not initially consider a career in medicine but are now ‘thinking about a switch’.

The NHS is suffering from a crippling shortage of doctors and rising numbers of patients needing care.

Scotland’s first graduate-level medicine course will begin next autumn and applications will open this September.

It will focus on training doctors to work as GPs or in rural areas, where there are particularly severe shortages.

The four-year course will have 40 places available and is being offered at the medical schools in St Andrews and Dundee in collaboration with the University of the Highlands and Islands.

Yesterday Health Secretary Shona Robison said: ‘I’d urge anyone with an existing degree, or who is about to graduate, to look out for the details of this course when it is advertised in the coming weeks.’

The application process will follow similar rules to traditional medical courses in Scotland, including a medical school aptitude test, interview and work experience. As well as a degree, there is a requirement for chemistry Higher and a maths National 5, Standard Grade or Intermediate 2.

But Scottish Labour’s health spokesman Anas Sarwar said: ‘The very fact we’re in this situation is the result of a decade of SNP mismanagement in our NHS.’

Dr Elaine McNaughton, deputy chairman of the Royal College of GPs in Scotland, said: ‘We are very pleased to see these places opening and call on the Scottish Government to keep up a long-term concentration on rebuilding the GP workforce. We have a concern at the predicted shortfall of 828 GPs to serve patients by 2021.’

Mita Dhullipala, chairman of the BMA’s Scottish Medical Students Committee, said: ‘The NHS in Scotland is facing challenges in the recruitment and retention of doctors and this is one way to encourage more people into a career in medicine.’