Abstract
EDITOR,—James Parkhouse claims that the drop out rate from medical schools in the United Kingdom ranges “from 11.7% to 14.1%.”1 If true, this suggests serious problems. His figures, however, disagree with other estimates by a factor of two. In a recent follow up of 2732 of the cohort of entrants to medical school in 1991, 133 (4.9%) had left during the preclinical (basic medical sciences) stage2; comparable figures for preclinical drop outs in the 1981 and 1986 cohorts were 35/502 (7.0%) and …