West Mids Doctors Boycott Job Interviews
From Mmc
WEST MIDS DOCTORS BOYCOTT JOB INTERVIEWS
06-03-2007 (first posted 05-03-2007)
A junior doctor who travelled thousands of miles to Birmingham for a job interview was left disappointed yesterday after a boycott by senior medics, protesting against the government’s new “fast track” plan for appointing consultants.
As The Stirrer recently reported, the new Modernising Medical Careers procedure has already been hugely controversial; the computer system channelling all 30,000 applications has crashed and proved unreliable on numerous occasions; the online questionnaire designed to filter out weaker candidates has been condemned as flawed; and with only 22,000 posts available, many thousands of decent doctors are destined not to find work (see our previous article here).
Now twelve West Midlands surgeons have staged a rebellion, by sending away more than 80 hopefuls looking for the route to the top of their profession – including at least one long-distance applicant.
The chair of the interview panel Bob Spychal who works at City Hospital told The Stirrer it was unanimous decision among his colleagues who came from around the region including Stoke, Walsall, Coventry, and Good Hope in Sutton Coldfield.
“It wasn’t just one of us. If there’s any trouble about this, we will take it all together. When you go against what’s expected of you in public life, you often get vilified but we hope what we’re doing will make a difference.
“It needs somebody to stand up and say that what’s going on isn’t right, and Joe Public doesn’t know about it.”
Spychal insisted that he’s not against the new system per se; it’s just that it’s been poorly designed and hastily implemented.
“The basic view of the whole panel was that the whole system of recruitment of doctors into post-graduate training is not fit for purpose. There’s nothing wrong with the principle of MMC but the recruitment process should not have been concentrated into such a tight time scale.”
As for the junior doctors who’d been inconvenienced by the late cancellation of their interviews – and Spychal admitted that one person has travelled “thouasands of miles “ – he said: “We were overwhelmed by the support and understanding offered by numerous candidates.”
