Photograph by Mary Hinckley/UCL Imagestore
Author: Altay Shaw
Editor: Sophie Rogers
In the recent leadership race, all candidates from the UCL Medical Society were disqualified following a complaint review conducted by the Deputy Returning Officer (DRO).
As the elections were set to close on Friday at 5pm, the President was only notified with 11 minutes left to spare, that the roles of President, Treasurer and Welfare Officer had all been pulled without a clear explanation provided at the time or reason given for the complaint. This left the then president facing an even more challenging situation. According to the President, all candidates who were running in these elections received no prior communication from the SU, nor did they receive any explanation following the results being released.
After a 12-day wait, they finally had the opportunity to “question” the decision. In the subsequent meeting with members from the student union, where the DRO was not present, the reason given was over the use of the society’s “Nominate a Friend for Committee” form, which was originally meant to be a unique way to drive interest in positions that would otherwise have been left open. The union stated that the form had acted as a “pre-screening tool” and could have acted as a way to sway the outcomes of races across the society,. The only candidate who received a nomination was a candidate for a principal role.
In an email sent out to members at the end of last year, the President addressed the situation, stating, “intended to engage members and enable more nominations (thereby greater democratic involvement in the elections), and allow fewer committee positions to be uncontested”. This followed the previous year, during which 9 committee positions were completely unfilled and an additional 9 positions had only one candidate running. To drive home the point even further, across all positions, the mean number of votes cast was 18, about 10% of the total membership of the Medical Society, a fall on the average from last year.
Though, at the outset, such a position may be normal for some societies, it is important to note the role of the Medical Society within the wider medical school community. In recent years, the quality of teaching has fluctuated, with a reduction in small group tutorials. This is primarily due to the location and availability of individual doctors. This requires a higher engagement from student societies, especially as the Medical Society run the mock fourth year practical exams on behalf of the medical school, meaning a lack of applicants might jeopardise the exam preparation for students in that specific year. This, coupled with the fact that students are expected to complete full weeks on the wards, highlights the importance these roles play in shaping the next generation of doctors.
While a committee member, who wishes to remain anonymous, stated that their committee position “had a lot of interest”, other subcommittees, including the Clinical Education Chairs and Oncology, did not get the same interest, forcing Term 1 by-elections and delays to appointments and planning of conferences, guest speaker events and teaching sessions for students across UCL.
Given the consistently low turnout seen across Student Union elections, where only 27% of the total student population voted for our current Sabbatical officers and committee positions across UCL, there remains a need to focus on engaging more students in our democratic process. Though the Union tries to incentivize and encourage members, the current model is not working.
We reached out to the Student Union for comment, whether or not a similar attempt would have been approved had the form been run past the Union beforehand. A spokesperson for the Union stated the following, “The DRO assess each complaint independently, taking into account the nature of the rule breach in the context of the election, therefore we are unable to give hypothetical decisions on the examples given. Election rules can be found here.”
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