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It's no wonder there aren't enough doctors

28 replies

musica · 22/03/2004 14:05

utterly stupid

OP posts:
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nutcracker · 22/03/2004 14:08

Completely ridiculous

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Tinker · 22/03/2004 14:08

Hmm, think there's more to that story though, maybe.

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CountessDracula · 22/03/2004 16:00

How did that get into the papers? It's utterly mad.

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twiglett · 22/03/2004 16:03

message withdrawn

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emmatmg · 22/03/2004 16:03

OH MY GOD!

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hmb · 22/03/2004 16:09

What a farce. No, it isn't a farce, it is too serious.

I also read last week that Cherie Blaire is representing a student who is suing the LEA because they excluded him for setting fire to a classroom. I suppose it might have been misrepresented, but it seems insane.

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lou33 · 22/03/2004 16:18

More money wasting.

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SueW · 22/03/2004 20:42

I have a friend who lives in Hemington - it's not a big place. I wonder if she knows more....

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Paula71 · 22/03/2004 23:13

I bet all the managers and pen pushers clogging up the NHS help themselves to more than a bowl of soup!

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stupidgirl · 22/03/2004 23:29

Stupid isn't it, but what a great name - Dr Hope

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robinw · 23/03/2004 07:12

message withdrawn

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docincognito · 23/03/2004 08:50

17 years ago, in the very same hospital, a junior doctor, who was in the middle of an 80 hour shift (I mean it- 9am Friday to 5pm Monday)was refused a meal because the canteen had shut 5 mins previously. It was the middle of the night, and there were no shops open, there were no vending machines (except for cold drinks) and the only food available on the wards (and supplied for the patients not the staff) was toast. The canteen staff were still there, the food was still there, and piping hot, but it was 5 mins past 1 am, so no, you can't get something to eat.

That junior doctor didn't "steal" any food, but phoned her Consultant, who phoned a manager, who phoned the canteen supervisor, who agreed to serve the food, but only after her staff (who worked 12-hour shifts, poor things)had had their break. So, 45 minutes later, a plate of food was supplied and paid for. How long does it take to dollop some stew and chips onto a plate, FFS?

Unfortunately, it seems nothing has changed at Queens Medical Centre over the years. The hospital is still ruled by jobsworths, who clearly have nothing better to do than disrupt the clinical work going on in the place!

If you have clinical concerns over a doctors work, you don't suspend him on a trumped-up charge,like stealing croutons. It smacks to me of the type of "knee-jerk" suspension that is implemented to "protect" the member of staff whilst an investigation goes on. How much investigation is needed? He either did or didn't steal the croutons. If he did, then slap his wrists and apply an appropriate sanction. I was disturbed to read that none of his patients are suffering from his suspension, because his work is being done by his colleagues, as if they didn't have enough to do already!

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hmb · 23/03/2004 09:02

Are you a regular poster docicgnito, if so I'm sorry that you have gone undercover for this posting. The whole thing is just so stupid!

I feel for your friend. How did that make her feel? Fairly worthless I bet. That at the end of 80 hours, doing a job that most of us could never do, she wasn't even worth some hot food. Makes you want to spit!

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docincognito · 23/03/2004 09:13

gone undercover cos it wasn't a friend, it was me!

Didn't feel much at the time, apart from dispair because all I wanted to do was get some food and get to bed. Ended up napping on the canteen seats until someone could be bothered to get up off their backside and serve me some food. I'm amazed, looking back, that I actually stuck with it and am still in this job!!

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lou33 · 23/03/2004 09:23

So let me get this right. You, doing an 80 hour shift, and no breaks, had to wait 45mins while a canteen worker had theirs? What on earth for? In case they dropped a chip on the floor from tiredness?

The world has gone mad.

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marthamoo · 23/03/2004 09:28

The world has gone mad - and the NHS is one of the maddest bits of it!

Dh is NHS and is often on call all night - no food available after a certain time. It's only recently they have provided an on-call room (with a bed, a shower etc.) he used to work 32 hours straight and have to snatch a few minutes sleep on chairs in the staff room. Now he has a bed, but they have such a staff shortage he is too busy to sleep in it

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hmb · 23/03/2004 09:34

Crazy, crazy world. I think that there is somethign about Public sector work tbh. Not in the same leage, but this happened to DH, who is a pilot in the RAF. He went into flying clothing stores as he was short of a vital bit of kit. 'Can't have it, sir, we only have one left', 'So why can't I have that one?' 'Someone else might need it'. It honestly happened!

When he was at war in the Gulf they had to search the local dump to get planks of wood to prop up their beds so they could sleep! The plane he flys costs £100,000,000, and he was sleeping on a plank of wood from the local tip.

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marthamoo · 23/03/2004 09:38

hmb, I think it is in the same league - what about that soldier in Iraq who was killed and it turned out he had been told to give his Kevlar jacket to someone else because they didn't have enough? We ask people to put their lives and their sanity and their health on the line for us and we can't even provide the basics for them.

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lailag · 23/03/2004 10:17

Don't understand the title if this tread. A friend of a cousin of my dh has been trying to get a job as a doctor for 6 mo (qualified abroad but has valid qualifications).
Anoher friend who is a consultant mentioned that fot 8 available posts for junior doctors they had 900 applicants.
Well, on the other hand dh and dd are supposed to go on holidays saterday but still not sure whether they can go as they haven't been able to find locum cover for dh. Poor ds has already had his travel jabs and started antimalarial tablets. Don't know what to tell him if he can't go???

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docincognito · 23/03/2004 12:05

lailag, unfortunately there is no "balance" between the jobs available, and the doctors from overseas wanting them. We had 150 applicants for 5 jobs in a surgical specialty recently. Of the 150, a handful were UK graduates(and only a couple of those were suitably qualified), the rest were overseas qualified. The vast majority, on paper,would have been over qualified for the job we wanted them to do. By this I mean loads of experience in the surgical specialty, but not enough recent experience in general medicine/ surgery. Our junior doctors are expected to look after patients on the wards, who can develop any number of medical conditions as complications, and they need to be up to date on how to treat, e.g. heart attacks, asthma, etc. (I am certainly not!).

Even when we whittled out the ones who, on paper, would be able to do the job, we still had 30 or 40 cvs for 5 jobs. How then do we choose between them? It's very difficult indeed.

In the less glamourous specialties, such as geriatrics, posts are available, but no-one wants them

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lailag · 23/03/2004 12:43

well, by increasing the frequency of the plabtest 3/month from 3/year, you do have more overseas coming here. what the purpose of this is i do not know except from getting money of them (exam fees), or try putting them in dead end jobs.

I do not believe in fairness in choosing people for the job, seen to much otherwise
anyway, mn probably not the best for this kind of discussion

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docincognito · 23/03/2004 13:24

well, I don't know anything about why the frequency of the PLAB test was increased, but logic would suggest that it is because the DEMAND is so great. There are far more overseas doctors wanting jobs than there are jobs available, it is a fact, BUT we must make sure that doctors appointed to posts are suitably qualified to look after the patients.

Overseas doctors aren't forced into dead end jobs, but they are easier to get, if there are fewer applicants per post. We have 6 SHOs at the moment, 2 are UK qualified, 4 overseas. We recently appointed a middle grade doctor who is from overseas, over 2 UK trained doctors, because he was the best candidate. Discrimination isn't universal.

My point was that although in some places you probably do get UK doctors shortlisted before overseas doctors, in my hospital there are so many overseas applicants that it is difficult to choose between them. Out of 30 or 40 applicants for 5 posts only 10 will get shortlisted. The other 20 - 30 will feel hard done by. It is inevitable, but unavoidable. Any individual may feel that he or she has been discriminated against, but it is more likely, here at least, that it is just sheer bad luck.

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docincognito · 23/03/2004 13:30

btw, not sure why we shouldn't discuss this on MN. Other people can just avoid this thread if they think it is boring. The fact is that the NHS could do with far more doctors than it has already, but the resources aren't there to just increase the number of doctors without putting in the support they need. Each Consultant needs a secretary, beds, clinic space, nurses, operating time, etc etc etc. We could increase the number of junior doctors posts (we have, actually) , but if we did this without restrictions, we would then be accused of creating dead end jobs with no possibility of the doctor getting further up the ladder.

I will happily admit that the NHS depends on doctors from overseas. If they suddenly disappeared overnight, the system could not cope. BUT that does not mean that we should be less discriminating about who we employ to look after our patients.

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tamum · 23/03/2004 13:37

I don't know if it's because of the level, or because the posts involve teaching, but we have got a number of clinical chair positions here that have been vacant for over a year now. I do think it can be very hard to recruit people of high enough calibre once you reach a certain level. Don't know whether that really relates to the title of the thread or not!

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expatkat · 23/03/2004 13:40

this is fascinating docincognito, and v. absurd/sad. I come from a family of (American) doctors & hear the American travails from them, but it just doesn't compare to what you guys face.

My brother (an ophthalmologist) applied for a fellowship at Moorfield Eye Hospital & never even heard back. . .he was probably up against 4,000 people! Luckily he got a good post in the US.

Anyway. . .just wanted to say that I live in tiny town on Cape Cod in the US & on the LOCAL radio station there was a report on this doctor and the croutons. Who says American don't look beyond their front door.

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