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Research brief on the access to professional education and training by disabled students following the General Medical Council case Konur, O. (2002) Research brief on the access to professional education and training by disabled students following the General Medical Council case, 7 May 2002, Version 1, 8,000 words (London, City University). [On-line] http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~cx639/gmc.htm Abstract This paper aims to brief all the Players involved in enabling disabled students to have access to professional education and training in higher education about the landmark case of General Medical Council v. Cox (2002) EAT decided on 22 March 2002 by the Employment Appeal Tribunal and its far-reaching implications for access to higher education and professional education by disabled students. The case is concerned with the access to medical education by a mobility-disabled student. The reasonable adjustments to the clinical training and academic assessments of Cox as suggested by University of Oxford were not approved by the Education Committee of the General Medical Council (GMC) on the ground of a 'threat to the patients' safety'. It was held by Mr. Justice Holland that GMC is a qualifying body and therefore it is exempt from the employment provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act (1995). Thus, it was found that exclusion of Cox from the medical education and training was lawful. The full text of the case is provided and case is summarised in an accessible format. Its implications are briefly discussed from an interdisciplinary context rather than the mere legal approach with an indicative list of references. It is argued that this case would affect negatively access to professional education as well as access to higher education at large by disabled students. Although a Bill is passing through the Parliament currently to extend the DDA to the 'qualifying bodies' and the Government intends to extend the DDA to these bodies by October 2004, higher education institutions would have a strong defence of the Section 28S(6) and 28S(7) of the DDA (1995) reinforced by Mr. Justice Holland's reasoning that access to medical education by disabled students would constitute a 'threat to the public safety'. This reasoning would be effective until is overruled by the legislation or by the Court of Appeal in the due course. In other words, the exclusion of disabled students from higher education and professional training would continue to be lawful despite the implementation of the SENDA (2001) starting from September 2002. It is argued in this brief that there is no proven causal relationship between access to medical education (as well as to any other professional education such as nursing education) and the safety of the clients they would serve upon their graduation. This contention is well supported by the close examination of the UK case law on the 'clinical negligence' by medical doctors, the research literature on access to medical education by disabled students, research on academic assessment of disabled students in higher education and in professional training among others. It is further argued that there is a need for the evidence-based public policy making on access to medical education, professional education and higher education at large rather than based on unsupported claims of 'threats to the public safety' as done in this case for example. Keywords: Disabled students, access to professional education, access to professional employment, access to higher education, General Medical Council (GMC), Disability Discrimination Act (1995), Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (2001), General Medical Council v. Cox (2002) EAT, research, Graeme Catto, reasonable adjustments, reasonable academic assessment, access to the curriculum, access to training, Disability Discrimination (Amendment) Bill (2002), EU Employment Directive, attitudes towards disabled students and disabled people. Background information about Ozcan Konur This research brief is a free outreach and dissemination activity from a research project. Ozcan Konur has carried out a four-year long self-funded research (funded through the modest casual employment income) into the access to higher education, professions, and graduate employment using an interdisciplinary research framework. He published three peer-reviewed papers and two conference papers on access to higher education and professions by disabled students. He also published over 100 abstracts and or papers online at the research project website at http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~cx639/index.htm (to be revised substantially soon). He is currently researching access to employment and professions by disabled people under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) (1995) to test the public claims made about the claimed effectiveness of the Part IV of this Act as revised by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) (2001). The underlying project has been registered for the Ph.D. at City University. ________________________________ Ozcan KONUR Postal address: Rehabilitation Resource Centre (Walmsley Building Room W223), City University, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, The United Kingdom. E-mail: [log in to unmask] Research project URL: http://www.student.city.ac.uk/~cx639/index.htm Phone: 020 7040 0271 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.