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3. GMC guidance and disabled people in medicine
3.3 The implications of the GMC guidance for careers in medicine
Anyone can graduate if they meet all the outcomes and curricular requirements set out in Tomorrow’s Doctors and meet the university’s regulations.Many students with a wide range of impairments, illnesses and health conditions successfully achieve the required standards of knowledge, skills and behaviours to become a doctor.
Occasionally students may not be able to progress with their studies, even with an appropriate range of adjustments and support in place. This might be the case, for example, if a student sustains a serious brain injury with a loss of cognitive skills that makes it impossible to continue learning; or if a student sustains an injury that makes it impossible to carry out some of the required clinical and practical skills.
After graduation, doctors may develop a physical, sensory or mental impairment, in which case the following guidance applies:
- Reasonable adjustments may allow the doctor to continue to practise as they have been doing.
- In some cases, the doctor may need to modify their practice.
- If a doctor does modify their practice, there is no need for the GMC to be involved.
- Having a health condition, an illness or an impairment does not make a doctor unsafe as long as they recognise and work within the limits of their competence, as any good doctor should do.