Are We There Yet? Widening Participation in Medicine

Rini (Dr Rini Paul) has been speaking to King’s College London (KCL) medical students and trying to elevate the voices of students who may not always have been heard. In this episode she finally gets to speak to an inspiring and joyful final year medical student James Frater, who has many other roles at King’s and beyond about his vision and relentless work to make access to institutions like ours more equitable. They discuss the work he does with students and other organisations to build programmes that are sustainable for those who need it the most.

They discuss his journey into medicine and how after joining KCL in 2015, James began to feel strongly about the low number of British students of Caribbean descent who were attending KCL and knew it needed to be addressed. He established a relationship between the Amos Bursary and KCL. At their most recent conference, they had close to 400 young people signed up with over 20% having Caribbean heritage.

They consider time management, how he has navigated medical school, what he wishes he had done differently and his “accountability” group. For James’ consistent dedication over the years, he has been recognised as one of the most outstanding students in the UK by Future Leaders and awarded the Akindolie Medical Scholarship, the prestigious Princess Diana Award and the Abbas Khan award for his outstanding contribution in the service of society in the past year. We are sure you will enjoy listening to this conversation and it will make you think about how you can support your students to genuinely feel included in our communities of practice.

 

You can read more about James’s work here:

• https://www.jamesfrater.com/more-about-me
• https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/kings-medical-student-receives-prestigious-princess-diana-award
• Queens At King's #QueensAtKings an initiative James led