Trust me, I'm a junior doctor: Don't give up hope
From Mmc
Trust me, I'm a junior doctor: Don't give up hope
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 07/05/2007
It's time for doctors to bite back, says Max Pemberton
In 1965, the American psychologist Martin Seligman stumbled across a phenomenon that would have a far-reaching impact not only on our understanding of human behaviour, but also on how authority can control individuals.
While repeating an established experiment that involved giving dogs electric shocks, he noticed something strange. The basis of the experiment was that when a dog that had previously learnt to associate the sound of a bell with an electric shock heard a bell ring again, it would jump in anticipation of another shock. advertisement
Seligman observed that after conducting this test a number of times, the dogs stopped jumping. Instead, they simply lay down and waited for the shock - even if a route of escape was provided. They had given up hope. The psychologist realised that when a creature believes it has no control over its situation and that whatever it does is futile, it begins to believe it is helpless and stops trying to fight or escape. He termed this condition "learned helplessness".
It became a well-established principle and was used to explain why, during the Holocaust, some concentration-camp prisoners refused to care or fend for themselves. It is argued that this is a mechanism at play in institutionalisation and in people's responses to traumatic events that are outside their control, such as famine or drought.
Interestingly, it has also been suggested that this is a subtle tool employed by governments. They say they are listening to us, but do nothing to change a situation, so we eventually give up, accepting there is nothing we can do to alter it. We become helpless. Once this has taken place, it becomes even easier for a government to pursue its own agenda.
I worry that presently, as a nation, we are at risk of falling into learned helplessness and this is most acute with the current crisis facing junior doctors.
The new employment process introduced by the Government has been a disaster: more than 10,000 doctors face unemployment in August. The process itself is fundamentally flawed and was clearly devised by a committee while its intelligent members were on a toilet break.
It has been such a shambles that now, with only a few months until our contracts end and we're due to start new jobs, every applicant has been offered an interview (after many of us were denied them) in a last-ditch attempt by the Government to save face. There have been marches, lobbies, rallies and debates in Parliament, on television and in the newspapers. None of it appears to have made any difference.
Last week, I sat and watched Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, on Question Time. Despite heckles from the audience, she stood her ground. She insisted she was "listening to patients". Well, I'm sorry Mrs Hewitt, but I'd like to meet the patients who think there are too many doctors in this country.
The truth is that the Government is not listening to anyone. It will push through its attempts at "modernisation" (the shambolic restructuring of the training and recruitment process for junior doctors being one of its major failings) regardless, because it knows that eventually we will give up. Like Seligman's dogs, we will lie down and take what it gives us. We, as a profession, will develop learned helplessness.
But, of course, this isn't the whole story. Seligman also observed, to his surprise, that not all of the dogs gave up. In fact, about a third continued to resist the electric shocks. This is reflected in the course of human history, which is littered with examples of individuals who have resisted; those who have stood up against what is wrong - and won.
The first cracks in the recruitment process appeared back in February, when a group of consultants in Birmingham walked out of interviews and refused to participate further.
With the next round of interviews fast approaching, every consultant in this country has the opportunity to make a stand, and to refuse to collude with the Government. It is vital that they all boycott the interview process - not just for their junior colleagues, but for the future healthcare of the nation.
The Government can push through these reforms only if we allow it to, and we have it within our power to stop the process dead in its tracks.
We are not as helpless as the Government would like us to believe, and we should not take the shocks they give us lying down.
