It usually takes five years of arduous study, but amateur doctors can now sign up for a 20-hour crash course in health studies at the country's first mini-medical school.
Heart disease, cancer, psychiatric disorders and respiratory illnesses such as asthma feature among the sessions at Birmingham University.
The course will appeal to "hobby docs" and fans of TV medical dramas such as ER andCasualty. Students will be taught basic first aid and how to read a chest X-rays and conduct a brain scan. Mini-medical schools are already run successfully at US universities, but the Birmingham University course is the first in the UK.
Taught in ten two-hour sessions, it aims to provide an insight into modern medicine, addressing the ethical issues facing modern doctors, such as MMR vaccinations and euthanasia, and the relationship between GPs and their patients.
Prof David Fitzmaurice, a primary care research expert at the university, said: "We want the mini-medical school classes to be enjoyable and accessible to everyone, but also providing an accurate and informative view of modern medicine."
All the sessions are designed with a strong emphasis on practical demonstrations. Students will get to see the use of blood pressure monitors, X-ray analysis and measure a person's oxygen uptake during exercise.
Kate Bishop, business development fellow at Birmingham's School of Medicine, said: "We are particularly pleased that some of the university's most active researchers will be teaching sessions on the course. We have also enlisted some of our current students to help with the sessions." * The course starts on April 25 and costs £125 per person. Anyone interested in the course can contact Kate Bishop on 0121 4143115 or Gemma Fuller on 0121 4146976 or register by clicking on the website at www.medicine.bham.ac.uk/mini-med.
