To finally agree with a junior doctors strike

[Horsehow]

Junior doctors have decided to strike as they are being overlooked for jobs / training posts which are instead given to international applicants. I’ve always abhorred their money grabbing strikes in the past, but support this one 100%. UK doctors should be recruited where possible, and international graduates only turned to where we cannot find a suitable recruit in the UK.

I think she will be absolutely fine without any Oxbridge value-added. Some maybe need it more than others. Actually there are quite a number of high achievers in her med school. Mind boggling eh!

Not agitated in the slightest, just pointing out the flaws in your arguments - which have been many.

I do not think guaranteeing an 18 yr old training through to consultant job is sensible or produces the best doctors of the future. Competition comes in many forms and IMGs are one. However, certain people have caveated so many options to UKMGs have to have a job, and those IMGs already here and and and.

I have simply offered a counter argument that this is not good for medicine as a profession in the long term and vilifying a group of people who are prepared to sacrifice a lot to train and invariably stay in the country is not necessarily a bad thing.

The latest being a British citizen who chose to study at Harvard on an academic/sporting scholarship and has taken PLAB - as they knew they would have to - just have less priority than an international UKMG who the hosptal will have to pay the significant cost of a visa to keep them in the country versus their own citizen who comes free of a 10k price tag.

I think some of the mothers on here are in for a big surprise - UKMGs are still going to lose out on jobs to IMGS even with prioritisation.

@Sparingthehorses there are some strange people who really believe only 5 medical schools are worthy. Bonkers, but makes them feel superior. Rest of us know what's true 😊

There are other threads on this topic thst you may find interesting.

My son has 13 GCSEs 10 are A and 3 grade A. 4 A A levels. Very high marks in MBBS from a top university.

Had enough points for foundation years in very competitive deanery. Got into surgical training first attempt and passed MRCS part A and part B first time.

He failed to get into higher surgical training as the competition ratios are now ridiculous.

He has done everything by the book like most UKMGs but been let down by UK government allowing IMGs to apply to specialty training in such huge numbers that the ratios are ridiculous.

Fair on UKMGs? 63% of applications for specialty training were from IMGs in 2025.

@stuffedpeppers mine already has a job thanks. Not here as a mum however much you want to try and patronise. No one has ever talked about guaranteed jobs ?

That's excellent then, no worries.

I just want the Resident Labour Market Test (RLMT) to be reinstated to what it was before January 2020. This would reinstate priority for UKMGs and IMGs can apply for any vacancies that have not been taken up by UKMGs.

Medical practitioners were placed on the Shortage Occupation List from 6 October 2019, meaning they were exempt from the Resident Labour Market Test and could apply for any medical specialty in any recruitment round, subject to eligibility. With Covid it's highly likely that this exemption would have lasted for several years at least, irrespective of any other decisions.

if you guarantee training through to consultant level /GP that allows a level of complacency to develop.
when you finally have to fight for a job and show you are one step above and worth being invested in by a hospital - it will be a shock.

Medicine should be competitive, i want the doctor who goes the extra mile for me as a patient - not the one who achieved the criteria and nothing more.

Incidentally - ENT ratios for HST are not ridiculous anything less than 1:6 is acceptable.

That list no longer exists. We have 20000 unemployed UKMGs

How will that happen without a visa?

How did you arrive at 20,000?

So you are now having a pop at run through training to try to cement a basically weak argument?

Medicine is competitive already. It was competitive between UKMGs. There are not enough jobs available for IMGs to get involved.

Look it up. It is on this thread already.

There's heaps of bullshit on this thread; it doesn't make any of it valid just because it's been said already.

UKGs will be prioritised v soon

And I do agree about the utter 💩 that has been repeatedly been spouted by some. Denigrating UK doctors. Denigrating Uk Unis. Disgusting.

Denigrating internationals disgusting.

Oh please here we go again.

Wanting the UK to prioritise UKMGs is not denigrating IMGs. IMGs can still apply for jobs in the UK once UKMGs have jobs.

IMGs are also in the position that they have the option to work in their own countries. Unlike the UKMGs that have been prevented from getting jobs in their own country due to unfair competition ratios causes by influx of IMG applications to specialty training.

It has been consistent over 3 or 4 threads

In a field of fatuous comments that takes the biscuit. Why on earth do you imagine we have the UKMLA?

Variation in assessment and standard setting practices across UK undergraduate medicine and the need for a benchmark. MacDougall 2015 https://doi.org/10.5116/ijme.560e.c964

"These findings highlight the difficulty that prevails in obtaining reassurance that on face value, UK medical schools adhere to a common standard of minimal competency for their medical graduates. In so far as the introduction of a national licensing exam could help in alleviating this difficulty, this study lends support to the GMC’s recent approval of the development of a UKMLA."

😂 look at % of each Uni and passing UKLMA. Your beloved 'top' Unis seem to have the same pass rates as the newer ones you despise.

Quote one comment where anyone has denigrated IMGs. You can't.

There are many of disgusting people denigrating UKGs though.

Absolutely. I just don't understand how they think insulting UKMGs and UK medical education would further the cause of IMGs.

It is more likely to do the opposite.

That is very interesting. An FOI was made to the GMC one week ago for this data, and they haven't released it yet.

Perhaps you would be so kind as to share one of your famous screenshots that shows it?

(We have 20000 unemployed UKMGs)
(How did you arrive at 20,000?)

Well, ok, you linked to an ITV article which reported that 20,000 doctors were expected to miss out on specialty training places this year - however this doesn't signify that 20,000 UKMGs are unemployed, not least because only 12,305 UK trained doctors applied for speciality training places in the first place.

The article in your link also says;
some UK trained doctors are at risk of unemployment this summer, according to the British Medical Associations (BMA).

There are also UKMGs squeezed out of UK NHS training in other years.

Maybe you can explain why you think it is ok that 63% of applications for specialty training posts were from IMGs?