Medical students ‘use sex to pay bills’

HUNDREDS of medical students are turning to prostitution to fund their education after the seedy world’s glamorous portrayal in Secret Diary of a Call Girl, a report reveals.

The Billie Piper TV drama in which the dangers are sidelined and she ‘oozes glamour and sophistication’ may have added to the trend, a medical journal claims.

One in ten trainee doctors claims to know someone who is selling their body because of increased living costs and rising tuition fees.

This is two-and-a-half times the number ten years ago, when only 4 percent were aware of a peer placing themselves in the sex industry.

Jodi Dixon, a final-year medical student at the University of Birmingham, says in an editorial in the Student BMJ that it is no coincidence the boom coincides with soaring tuition fees.

When universities begin charging fees of up to £9,000 a year, the British Medical Association estimates medical students’ debts could increase to almost £70,000.

Miss Dixon, 24, said: ‘With escalating debts, students in the United Kingdom may view prostitution as an easy way to get rich quick.

‘ This view could be fuelled by recent coverage of prostitution in the media – for example, the television dramatisation of the popular book Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

‘The show makes prostitution seem alluring.’