I don't know if any of you know about this, but there is a march fro the royal college of physicians in regents park to the royal college of surgeons in holborn because of the government ballsing up the way they train. If you have been following this then you know what I mean, but otherwise look up mtas and mmc. I am going along to support my mates (I recently left medicine to join the pharmaceutical industry), so if you are involved or concerned about such things it starts at 11am on saturday!
Not around too often!
http://www.drrant.net/2007/03/mtas-in-full-motion.html
very interesting read if you are interested. (warning some strong language in this rant hehe)
TiG
-- Hexus Meets Rock! --
I don't need to read about it! I get the rant from the wife every day, colourful language included!
Not around too often!
What's the score, they get £300k worth of training on the NHS but then no job because of cheap foreign doctors and the fact there is no money left after the GP's pay rises, or what?
short listers cannot see where candidates went to university and they cannot see where they have worked.
jeez even Leeds council's recruitment system isnt that bad! and council's seem to recruitment on incompetence and laziness
Not really. They have kicked out all of the foreign doctors and are expecting doctors from this country to up sticks and go where ever they are sent, despite family ties, spouses etc on top of their terrible shortlisting system that simple has not worked. Terrible really!Originally Posted by JPreston
Not around too often!
I think you missed my point Menthel, i just don't go support things without understanding why its so bad, my link was to open up the topic to more hexus members so they can be aware of it.
Indeed maybe half the problem is that it seems to be limited to the medical profession and i had no idea what the hell it was.
TiG
-- Hexus Meets Rock! --
Sorry, my comment came across the wrong way. It was maily me feeling sorry for myself as it is all I here about from my wife and friends!
Thanks for putting the link up to help people understand more.
Not around too often!
They are complaining because they don't like the application form?
They should see what some other careers are like...
http://airlinepilotcentral.com/resou...061206158.html
NHS is a complete and utter failure as far as the doctors are concerned. At the same time the public seem to carry an anti-doctor sentiment along with the illusion that doctors are paid in 6 figures or something of the sort.
My girlfriend is a recently qualified doctor and I find the system they are being forced into appalling - it is about the same as the national lottery. It does not matter whether you have family, or an established household in one part of the country. nothing relevant is taken into account - they assign you to a job and expect them to go there ... Often you finish one job and start another the just after the weekend. I would barely call than enough time to move halfway across the country.
Pay and working hours in some trusts are awful ... They then put pressure on the doctors to report lower working hours to stick with the EU regulations. In other cases, they admit flat out that they are being paid less than the work they do, but that they will not pay any more.
A lot of the people I know are seriously considering moving to a different country to practice medicine in.
I am a recently qualified dentist, and while not as bad, the dental part of NHS is doing very well either.
NHS is an excellent sysyem on paper - but in its current form of implementation its an appalling failure.
MTAS - the current bane of my life! I have been completely shafted by MTAS and now in August my first job as a doctor looks likely to be in Bangor - and I have to go there to work or not be a doctor. This sucks! Unfortunately can't go th the march as I'm on a finals revision course this weekend.
Aah mate you sound like you are really struggling, why not post your Paypal account and we can send you some cash to help you get by?
Only kidding - I know doctors work hard, but they do get paid pretty well. You can't say that being a dentist is anything other than a licence to print money though!
My children will be my pension and whether they like it or not in the order they are born they will be a corporate lawyer, another corporate lawyer, a corporate lawyer or a dentist, then they can choose from a range of about 20 secondary professions including doctor, airline pilot, or accountant (like their old man)
Surely being a junior doctor today is better than 10, 15, 20 years ago? And one day, you get to be a senior doctor or a consultant or something...
Standard disclaimer- I just finished 9 straight days of work, so of course right now I'm tired, and I got drunk because it's my last chance to get hammered until next Wednesday night.
As far as I can tell this whole cock-up is thanks to New Labour's insistence on implementing new and fabulous computer schemes where there was a system that worked perfectly well before. But didn't junior doctors always have to travel around a bit to get a placement?
I'm deliberately inviting a slapdown here: but I don't think a medicine degree can be all that hard. It just involves tons and tons of rote learning- a doctor just has to know what can potentially go wrong with the human body, how to recognise the symptoms, and how to treat them as a result. Given that there's a lot can go wrong, it's a lot to learn.
If you've done 5 years at uni learning it all, and then come out to find that you're not guaranteed a job at the end, then you're going to be pretty hacked off- I would be. But what is the underlying problem? Are we putting more students through medical degrees than there are jobs for? As an anecdotal, purely by chance I bumped into a girl from my 6th form class in my second year at uni. In her A-Levels, first time round, she'd got 4 Bs and had been roundly rejected from every medical course she's put down on her UCAS. So, she resat, and got 4 As, in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology- and still couldn't get a place at medical school. So she did Law. Straight in with her four science A-levels, through clearing, no problem.
I spent two years in A-Level chemistry classes with her, and she wasn't as good at it as I was- but she would have made a fine doctor, because she was prepared to work hard and learn it all.
So, to invoke the standard drunkenness disclaimer again- what exactly is the problem here? And why should I be so angry that I should go out and March on Saturday?
Edit: it took a while, but I got there in the end: my main problem with medicine in this country is that as far as I can tell it's a closed shop. I can't sign up to an Open University degree in medicine, no matter how capable I may or may not be. The only way I can become a doctor, as far as I can tell, is to resit all my A-Levels. I already have As in Physics and Chemistry but until I nail the Maths and Biology I haven't a hope. Never mind that I managed to out-chat the NHS Psychiatrist I saw on the intricacies of the ADHD I may or may not suffer from.
I only go to the doctors nowadays if I know that's the only way I'll get treatment for something that won't get better by itself. It wouldn't surprise me if I didn't see my GP once in the next 20 years- last time, when my whole foot got infected after a motorcycle accident, I just went straight to A&E, and detained them for about 5 minutes.
Final edit: my wife IMO clearly suffers from depression. Two years ago the doctor prescribed her a 'second generation' antidepressant which did nothing other than make her dizzy, but our circumstances changed enough to cheer her up a bit. When she went back a week ago, even more upset, her GP (who up until this point I'd had a lot of time for) just dismissed it as a temporarry blip because her nan had just died.
She tried to explain that she hadn't been happy for years, that the black dog is constantly behind her back waiting to bite her, but no, it's apparently just a minor glitch. Just wait it out.
Last edited by Rave; 14-03-2007 at 12:38 AM.
Medicine is a funny thing. It is hard to get into, harder now than ever before, even despite the graduate entry programs and expanded 5 year course places. I don't know why some people get into medical school and some don't. I got my a-levels and went, no old boys network etc. I am the first 'professional' in my family.
Medicine is also a lot more than rote learning, as unfortunately the body doesn't always do what we expect. At our level of understanding at the moment things are rather patchy, it is an art rather than a science, some may say. We know, for example that some drugs work well in some people, but not in others. We think it might be genetic, but we just don't know at present and so cannot test for it.
Medicine degree is a bloody hard 5/6 years/ Its 9-5 monday to friday for the first couple of years and then you hit the wards and you can end up working all hours.
Also being a junior doctor is better in some ways now than 15 years ago. You are not on call every other day, there is less institutionalized bullying by senior doctors etc. However it is far worse in so many others. Shift patterns have been implimented to cover the european working time directive, so that doctor's hours are in line. This means shift patterns, weeks of nights here, long days the next week etc. It is stressful to say the least. And juniors are then coherced into lying about their hours. They are diary carded intermittently to show EWTD compliance and are basically told to lie on their cards.
Put on top of that the pay. Yes, it is good, but nowhere near as good as other people with similar qualifications or responsibility. I have recently left medicine to work in the pharmaceutical industry and am working far less hours, not worrying whether I have killed someone at work and I am far better renumerated.
On top of this comes MTAS and MMC. Modernising medical careers is basically designed to shake up a 20 year old system that was seen (by the politicians) to be failing. They felt that there was too little transparency in the system of job applications. People who worked in a region tended to climb up the ladder in that region, oftne with the help of their seniors. Juniors got to stay somewhere and the seniors got doctors who they knew and trusted as the seniors now do far more paperwork than patient contact. It is also designed to push through lots more people to fill 'Junior consultant' roles so that the government can meet targets with regards to outpatients seeing consultants. However these junior consultants are basically the registrars from the old system. The number of 'senior' consultant posts is not really increasing.
Another side effect of this is the pushing of junior doctors all over the country as there are more home trained and EU doctors. This means people who live with their spouse can be working in London and then given a job in Inverness. Relocation packages? Not a chance. Linking the place for couples jobs? Tacked on at the last minute and definately not working.
The application process has been a nightmare, with peoples applications being an exercise in creative writing as there is nowhere on the forms to put your actual experience and skills. The forms have not even bee looked at properly and shortlisting was dumped on the consultants very late. It has been recognised that there are very well qualified doctors who just have not got short listed for any jobs at all.
This has had a knock on effect on overseas doctors, particularly those from India. They have basically been doing all of the horrible jobs in the out of the way places that the local graduates didn't want to work. They have now been denied jobs and are going home in their droves. Very good doctors just left by the wayside.
Medicine in this country is in terrible trouble. It is no longer seen as a vocation and as such people are fed up with being treated like a commodity, to be shifted round the country to suit the governments political aims. That is why they are striking.
If you don't want to be treated by disenfranchised, depressed and non motivated doctors, then you should probably support the march!
Sorry for the length of the post. Any questions just ask.
Not around too often!
Menthel has put it very well so I wont add on to that.
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