medical education, medical schools, medical students

ME/CFS will be taught to all medical students starting in 2024/2025 – but will the teaching be of a high standard?

Katie Johnstone
Part of the cover of the General Medical Council's MLA content map document. Title: MLA content map. Subtitle: Medical Licensing Assessment gmc-uk.org/mla. There is a black-and-white photo of a smiling young woman wearing a lanyard, and a big decorative yellow diagonal stripe.
Cropped image from the cover of the General Medical Council‘s MLA content map.

We were very pleased to learn that ME/CFS is included on the MLA content map, and will therefore be taught to all undergraduate medical students in the UK, starting in the 2024/2025 academic year.

However, we have concerns. We know that currently UK doctors in general know little about ME/CFS, and tend to have incorrect beliefs about the condition.A We know that many UK medical schools have no tradition of teaching ME/CFS at the undergraduate levelB, and that few teaching materials specifically aimed at undergraduate students exist. And we know that within the medical world in generalC and within medical schools in particularD there is a deep-rooted culture of dismissive, stigmatizing, and unscientific attitudes to the condition. We are concerned that some schools may still be having ME/CFS taught by psychologists, which is wildly inappropriate – imagine, say, a class on the immune system taught by an occupational therapist, or a class on cancer taught by a dentist.

The fact that, in the MLA content map, ME/CFS is referred to by the old, inaccurate, and stigmatizing name ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’ does nothing to instill us with confidence. If the GMC can’t even get this small but important detail right, it is hard to believe that they and other medical institutions are ready to face the challenge of ending decades of medical neglect and building a new culture based on respect for the best scientific evidence, and respect for patients, when it comes to ME/CFS.

Delivering high-quality teaching on ME/CFS is not actually that difficult. Excellent learning materials intended for clinicians do already exist, and some of them can be found listed on our learning resources page.

But just because something can be done, doesn’t mean it necessarily will be done. The ME community has been let down by medical institutions many times before. We have good reason to suspect that sympathetic words and good intentions might not lead to any real change.

Therefore in the coming months we will be in touch with the Medical Students’ Council, the relevant Royal Colleges and the GMC to ask them to commit to ensuring that the teaching on ME/CFS will up-to-date, evidence-based, and in line with the NICE guidelines. And we will ask these institutions to be transparent about their plans, and to share any syllabuses, lesson plans or teaching materials with the ME community. This community has suffered tremendously for many years at the hands of doctors who made avoidable mistakes because they knew little about our condition. We have every right to be included in the process of finally developing decent medical education on ME/CFS.

Further reading

To learn more about the MLA:

Footnotes

A. Many doctors have poor knowledge of ME/CFS:

  • Hng KN, Geraghty K, Pheby DFH. An Audit of UK Hospital Doctors’ Knowledge and Experience of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Medicina (Kaunas). 2021 Aug 27;57(9):885. doi: 10.3390/medicina57090885. PMID: 34577808; PMCID: PMC8464998. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8464998/
  • Pheby DFH, Araja D, Berkis U, Brenna E, Cullinan J, de Korwin JD, Gitto L, Hughes DA, Hunter RM, Trepel D, Wang-Steverding X. A Literature Review of GP Knowledge and Understanding of ME/CFS: A Report from the Socioeconomic Working Group of the European Network on ME/CFS (EUROMENE). Medicina (Kaunas). 2020 Dec 24;57(1):7. doi: 10.3390/medicina57010007. PMID: 33374291; PMCID: PMC7823627. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33374291/
  • Timbol CR, Baraniuk JN. Chronic fatigue syndrome in the emergency department. Open Access Emerg Med. 2019 Jan 11;11:15-28. doi: 10.2147/OAEM.S176843. PMID: 30666170; PMCID: PMC6333158. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30666170/

“People with [ME/CFS] report delays in diagnosis, and many healthcare professionals lack the confidence and knowledge to recognise, diagnose and manage it. Fatigue associated with another chronic disease may be confused with ME/CFS and some practitioners are reluctant to positively diagnose ME/CFS when no other causes are found.”

B. UK medical schools currently provide little to no training on ME/CFS at the undergraduate level:

  • Muirhead N, Muirhead J, Lavery G, Marsh B. Medical School Education on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Medicina (Kaunas). 2021 May 28;57(6):542. doi: 10.3390/medicina57060542. PMID: 34071264; PMCID: PMC8230290. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34071264/
  • Stenhoff AL, Sadreddini S, Peters S, Wearden A. Understanding medical students’ views of chronic fatigue syndrome: a qualitative study. J Health Psychol. 2015 Feb;20(2):198-209. doi: 10.1177/1359105313501534. Epub 2013 Sep 20. PMID: 24058124. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24058124/

C. There is stigma towards people with ME/CFS among doctors and in the medical world in general:

  • Froehlich L, Hattesohl DB, Cotler J, Jason LA, Scheibenbogen C, Behrends U. Causal attributions and perceived stigma for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Journal of Health Psychology. 2022;27(10):2291-2304. doi:10.1177/13591053211027631. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13591053211027631

D. There is stigma towards people with ME/CFS within medical schools:

  • Stenhoff AL, Sadreddini S, Peters S, Wearden A. Understanding medical students’ views of chronic fatigue syndrome: a qualitative study. J Health Psychol. 2015 Feb;20(2):198-209. doi: 10.1177/1359105313501534. Epub 2013 Sep 20. PMID: 24058124. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24058124
Unknown's avatar

Published by Katie Johnstone

Leave a comment