MVST Student Progress Panel

Monitoring Medical and Veterinary Student Progress

The General Medical Council (GMC) and Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) have certain expectations regarding the attitudes, behaviour and performance expected of medical and veterinary students from the beginning of their course through to graduation and provisional registration, and places the responsibility for monitoring this on the University.

In the University of Cambridge, much of the day-to-day responsibility for this rests with the College tutorial and pastoral care system.

The Medical and Veterinary Student Progress Panel

The College tutorial and pastoral system is backed up by the Medical and Veterinary Student Progress Panel, which maintains a general overview of medical and veterinary student progression throughout both the preclinical and clinical course at Cambridge. It will also monitor the cases of students who for one reason or another may be having problems with the course. This may be because of illness, personal difficulties or due to repeated examination failures.

The Medical and Veterinary Student Progress Panel consists of senior members of the Faculty of Biology, School of Clinical Medicine and Department of Veterinary Medicine together with College tutorial representatives.

In co-operation with Colleges, through the Senior Tutors and the College pastoral system, the Medical and Veterinary Student Progress Panel will review student cases, with a view to offering advice and support for students who are encountering difficulties with the course. The committee is not a disciplinary body, and is set up to provide support for students and Colleges. Its basic remit is to try to ensure that students have a timely and, as far as possible trouble free progress through the course. A more detailed description of the Panel and its functions can be found here.

However, the Medical and Veterinary Progress Panel is aware of the GMC and RCVS expectations of medical and veterinary students and it will have the option of referring cases which raise serious concerns to the Fitness for Practice Committees.