From:

Council of Heads of Medical Schools
Woburn House
20 Tavistock Square
LONDON
WC1H 9HD

17 February 2003

The Editor
The Times
1 Pennington Street
LONDON
E98 1TA

Sir,

The Council of Heads of Medical Schools is not, as implied by your EducationCorrespondent yesterday, concerned by an alleged "refusal of Muslim studentsto learn about some procedures such as abortion". Issues at the interfacebetween strongly held beliefs, whether Catholic, Jewish, Muslim or Atheist,bring important contributions to the ethics of care and clinical practice.There are well-established expectations, fully endorsed by the GeneralMedical Council, that in our diverse society patients must be allowedautonomy and practitioners must refer to others when a clinical decisionwithin the law might transgress their own belief system. Students have tocome to terms with and work within this ethical framework. There isabsolutely no basis for the suggestion that our valued Muslim students aredifferent in this regard from any others. Furthermore, the implication ofyour report that medical schools "manipulate entry figures" to thedisadvantage of any particular ethnic group would be unlawful. We wouldstrongly deprecate any such behaviour and do not believe it exists.

Yours faithfully

Professor Robert Boyd
Chairman

Tel +44 (0)20 7419 5494
Fax+44 (0)20 7380 1482
barbara.anderson@chms.ac.uk