As a group of British Citizens and Residents, who are studying Medicine and Dentistry in Ukraine, we are collectively writing this petition to bring to light how severely we have been impacted by unexpected war in Ukraine.

Although, as instructed by the British Embassy, a lot of students left Ukraine shortly before the invasion. However, due to various reasons some British students were stuck in Ukraine and faced many obstacles trying to get out of Ukraine.

Many British students had to arrange their own transport to the borders of the neighbouring countries and they were also forced to walk long distances, in the freezing cold temperatures to reach these borders for a safe passage out of Ukraine.

Unfortunately, their troubles didn’t stop there as many British Students of different ethnic minorities faced racism and abuse at the Ukrainian borders. After going through all of this, we are now left with uncertainty about our degrees.

We are all in different stages of our degrees, with some of us already doing clinical placements in Ukraine, some in the middle of medical board examinations. We had to leave this all behind for the safety of our lives and we are now left with uncertainty about our degrees, our education and our futures. Taking all this into consideration, we kindly request the British government to assist British students arriving from Ukraine with the safe continuation of our studies, away from a perilous warzone.

As a matter of urgency, we appeal to the British government to value our main concerns into consideration and engage in discussions with the respective statutory bodies, the General Medical Council, the Medical Schools Council and the various Medical Schools in the United Kingdom to help address our concerns.

These are the following main points to be taken into consideration for a discussion:

1.       The prospect of assisting British Medical and Dental students in Ukraine to transfer back home to British Medical and Dental Schools, possibly to any year of the degree that the universities deem fit or into graduate entry medicine.

 

2.       The consideration of changing British Medical Schools’ international transfer policies, based on humanitarian grounds, such as war and displacement.

 

3.       Assistance in arranging clinical rotations in public and private hospitals in the United Kingdom for medical Students in their senior years or who are due to enter their senior years.

 

4.       Allocation of a financial aid package to fund medical/dental student transfers and tuition fees for students who are seeking to continue safely studying in other EU and non-EU countries.

We also kindly request all the British Medical Schools to look at and assess our situation and ask that institutions respond slightly flexibly with their student transfer policies.

According to the official government website, the British government have “brought total UK support during the current Ukraine crisis to £220 million, which includes £120 million of humanitarian aid”. We respect and acknowledge the efforts of the British Government helping protect Ukrainian citizens and tackling the significant humanitarian crisis. However, we also  call on the British government to look at the situation of its own residents and citizens living and studying in Ukraine and we ask for practical and financial support for students fleeing a warzone, so that we can safely continue to pursue our education. Additionally, the Indian, Tunisian and Irish governments are currently having talks to facilitate the continuation of studies for their residents/citizens back in their home countries, therefore, we ask the British government to also support its own students to transfer back home. Of course, we are not asking for a free pass into British Medical Schools, however, we ask that you look upon our situation to facilitate our studies safely back in the UK. In return students coming back from Ukraine would be open to take aptitude tests or interviews.

We sincerely request you to take our concerns and our situation into full consideration, as a matter of urgency and extend your support to us so that we may be able fulfil our passions of becoming qualified doctors. Therefore, we can return back home as competent and capable doctors to meet the needs of the shortage of doctors and service that the NHS is currently facing.

We would appreciate a response, as we would like to open up a conversation with the British government and British students returning from Ukraine, so that our concerns can be addressed in a more direct manner.

Yours Sincerely,

British Medical Students studying in Ukraine.