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The UK Medical Careers Research Group (UKMCRG) undertakes longitudinal studies of the careers of all doctors who graduated in particular years from UK medical schools.
These cohort studies comprise postal and web-based surveys in which we ask structured questions about career intentions and progression, and the factors that influence them. In addition, we invite respondents to write free text comments about any aspect of their training, career or work.
To date, we have collected data from over 50,000 doctors from twelve cohorts of medical graduates. Each cohort is defined by year of graduation.
We estimate that over one in three practising NHS doctors who qualified since 1974 has completed one or more of our questionaires. Results from our studies have been published in leading international journals - see the publications pages on this site for links to many of them.
These cohort studies have been funded by the Department of Health since the 1970s and were first established by Dr James Parkhouse. We work to a research protocol written by us and agreed with the Department. We maintain links with the Department of Health, Medical School Deans, the General Medical Council, and others. Our current protocol covers two years from 1 April 2011.
The Group is part of the Unit of Health-Care Epidemiology, itself part of the Department of Public Health, in the University of Oxford.
It is located on the Old Road Campus of Oxford University in the Oxford suburb of Headington in the north east of the city.
