No. Not at all. As has been explained several times.
This thread is about F1 allocations. My point is that if contractual terms are not the same across the UK, some are disadvantaged when it comes to making a training application. We still do not know what your role is within the health sector, but assuming you have worked nights at some point in your career you will know the havoc it plays. Ergo even not working nights as an F1 is an advantage. My aim was to warn new F1s that competition for training places is intense, that it is not a level playing field and that you really need to be working to get a training place during F2, because those entry level jobs are now pretty inaccessible., .
The AIBU thread is about the fact that changes to immigration law has opened up all doctor jobs, including entry level jobs suitable for newly qualified doctors, to worldwide competition. Yes it happened because a small number of posters, who were on medical school threads eight or nine years ago discovered that NONE of our F2 DC expected to be able to find work as doctors this summer. Most expect to have to go to Australia. The other is hoping to survive on a small number of NHS Bank shifts (these too have largely dried up because of the increasing number of unemployed doctors) presumably supplemented backed up by some other zero hours jobs.
Yes we are worried about our DC who have worked hard for eight years and now find they are not wanted. However, and as someone who has worked in policy positions in Whitehall, NHS staff and patients and should also be worried. What is clear is that concerns expressed by a fairly random selection of F2s is pretty universal. They can no longer do what the CTFs at their medical schools wee doing, which is to finish F2 and then study for exams.
My cousin's daughter worked as a CTF in Oxford whilst studying to get on GP training. She is happy being a GP and will almost certainly following her parents in spending a career serving the community. The trouble is that if she were an F2 now, international competition means she might struggle to find an F3 post, struggle against the massively increased competition to get on training, struggle to get a GP post given jobs again are open to international competition. (GP unemployment is a thing. UK jobs are attractive because of the scope they give to resettle a family in the UK.)
You clearly do not see a problem. From memory, correct me if I am wrong, you have a son who was Oxbridge followed by F1/F2 in London though before the immigration changes were implemented (and before the competition from overseas medical school graduates exploded.) I assume that he has remained in London, rather than select a training post in an out of the way place. You seem to see the current system as merit based. And that merit is achieved by effectively demanding ever stronger CVs, based on academic and research achievements, from those selected for training.
Beyond the fact that having the tax payer fund people like our DC to study medicine only for them not to be able to find work is bonkers, I see several problems. Academic doctors make good academic doctors. Do all specialists in the UK, including GPs need to have lots of additional academic credentials? You also seem to believe that by using academic criteria which means that over 50% of training places go to graduates of international medical schools (IMGs), we get better GPs, psychiatrists, geriatricians etc. Yes lots of overseas doctors are very good but not all. Some medical training involves very little patient contact, which gives rise to adjustment problems when in the NHS. (Even the BAPIO academy in India that charges large fees to prepare for applications to the UK admit Indian trained doctors are often lacking in soft skills.) Then there is the problem of commitment. Increasing numbers of IMGs are likely to take their prestigious UK training and run off to private practice in Dubai or Singapore or Australia. This leaves us having to recruit anew at Consultant level, when adjustment to the NHS can be tough, and at a seniority where top Consultants can choose where they go, and the NHS is rarely at the top of their list.
Do you really believe that the current system is delivering merit across the the country and at all levels?
What do you think could be improved?
(Sorry about the divert. I will return to the AIBU thread, and doubtless Auchencar will follow. And if anyone else is concerned about the current situation please write to your MP. This is a repeat of a similar problem of 20 years go when it took about four years to properly ring-fence key jobs so that UK based doctors could build a career here, rather than have to leave. The sooner the Government recognise the damage recent changes in immigration law are causing, the sooner it will be fixed.)