Self-promotion trumps hard work amid medical training chaos (letters)
From Mmc
Self-promotion trumps hard work amid medical training chaos
Published: 17 March 2007
Sir: We wish to express complete lack of confidence in the new system for selecting young doctors for specialist training, called Medical Training Application Service (MTAS), and call on its architects to resign. We are amazed that MTAS and the allied overhaul of training called Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) have been introduced by government diktat, rather than by discussion with those experienced in medical education and training.
A major problem was the sudden introduction of a system which, without piloting or consultation, abandoned long-recognised measures of the clinical skills and intellectual prowess required by successful doctors. Short-listing under MTAS attaches many more marks to creative writing and communication skills than to a first-class degree or PhD.
The unfolding disaster found a random 35 per cent of UK-trained doctors without interview. If there had been enough posts for all, the architects of MMC would have again escaped unscathed from the lottery and chaos they have inflicted - as happened last year when a similar process was introduced for the early "Foundation Year" doctors. But this time selectors were caught out by the numbers of applicants from all EU countries.
We will be reassured only if the reported "climbdown" indicates that responsibility for training is being returned to those with experience. The current selection process must be abandoned or a guarantee provided that 50 per cent of posts will be kept vacant for a validated, second round of appointments.
The whole medical profession, and wider public, should resist the imposition of a system where many talented and hard-working graduates of UK medical schools, whose education has cost the taxpayer about £250,000 each, have lost out to doctors from the wider EU with greater skill in self-promotion and plagiarism. When a new contract in 2004 for senior doctors promised changes to working practice - ultimately cosmetic to all but salary bills - there were years of negotiations and ballots. The more cataclysmic changes to patient care consequent on MMC and MTAS have escaped such democratic interventions.
MORRIS BROWN, PROFESSOR , UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE; NICK BROOKS, PRESIDENT, BRITISH CARDIOVASCULAR SOCIETY; JOHN CAMM, PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL CARDIOLOGY, ST GEORGE'S HOSPITAL MEDICAL SCHOOL, LONDON; HILIP HOME, PROFESSOR OF DIABETIC ENDOCRINOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE; HUMPHREY HODGSON, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, ROYAL FREE & UNIVERSITY COLLEGE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, LONDON; KAY-TEE KHAW, PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL GERONTOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE; JOHN LAZARUS, PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF CARDIFF; STEPHEN O'RAHILLY, FRS, PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL BIOCHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE; BRIAN ROWLANDS, PROFESSOR OF SURGERY, UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM; ROBERT SUTTON, PROFESSOR OF SURGERY, UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL; DOUG TURNBULL, PROFESSOR OF NEUROLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE; HUGH WATKINS, PROFESSOR OF CARDIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD; NICK WRIGHT, WARDEN, QUEEN MARY COLLEGE, LONDON; AND 39 OTHERS
