Ok lets cover a few pints that i personally feel are worth respondong to.
Rich Trash...as i said you do talk out of your arse and have again confirmed it.
How many lawyers do you know? My mates who went into Law almost without exception expected to be lawyers after pasing the LPC.
Actually it's almost entirely the opposite of what you said, if you don't get a job after F2 it is potentially the end of your career. Now there are more people than there are jobs (not that we don't need more doctors we are just not funding them) its both competative and time limited. Depending on how long ago you graduated determined what level you could apply for at ST, now if you don;t get a job one year you then reapply possibly at a higher level but with a gap in your CV which makes you less attractive as a candidate and your then trying to get into a stream that may be at capacity...return to go don't collect £200 and try again with an ever decreasing chance of getting a traiing job.
From next year they are taling of removing all FTSTA posts as there will be about 9000 doctors who don't get ST posts which cannot be rectified with FTSTA posts due to cost.
There are more EU applicants for F2 next year than there are posts (so roughly 6500 posts just over 6000 uk applicants and over 6500 other EU applicants... do the math the scale of the problem could be massive) so yes having to take a year out can be career ending...and though people with good CV's didn't get jobs which was due to a rubbish appointments procedure from now on the mount of people will be the main reason for others not getting jobs...plus you may be one of the best in the country at your level but happen to be up against the few candidates better than you..you loose a great doctor because they reduced appointments mean there is no wriggle room to help out a good candidate who gets shafted.
Anjoo, apology accepted, (this i hope you realise is in a softer tone
)
A PA who goes on to medicine is not progressing they are re-training in the same way a nurse or radiographer who goes to medical school is.
No i have not worked with any PAs but from what i hear fro the yanks who are here they do a juniors job for more money than a junior but as i said by reducing the training oppertunities for those same juniors and under supervision...this supervision is a requirement of the role as any mistakes are on the supervising doctor in a different way than it would be if a junior did the same thing.
As for point 2 as i have said if the juniors don't do lots of the basic cases they won't be equiped to do the complex ones. I suture a lto in A&E when i am on minors, this is because i want to do surgery and think this is a good skill to practice, most doctors leave the nurse to do it as they are medics and have no interest in doing it once they have a basic level of skill. The basic cases that doctors don't need to see are already covered by nurses with extended roles in places like A&E, in pain teams, specialist nurses for patient infromation and training. A PA adds nothing to existing roles.
I don't think we should give the PAs a break, i think we should make our feelings known (if we are for or against) so that those of us who feel they will de-skill a doctor can raise objections to try and stave them off.
Gov initiatives are destroying the NHS so just because its one of them does not mean we should go along with it silently (there must be a reason we don't train PAs in this country).
Anjoo, debt is not a reason not to go to medical school...my 10's of thousands of £ debt attest to that
As for the hours...i have never had a job where i only did 48 hours a week, in the Royal Navy or in industry. i couldn't do my job there so doubt i will be a beter doctor for having so few hours in medicine.
Dr Noodle...the opt out is only until 2009 i believe, this is what happend for the NHS. Doctors were allowed to reduce to 56 then in 2008 the NHS will make it a 48 hours week as they think it will take a year to get it running for the 2009 deadline.
Varied A...well this nurse does come across as doctor hating, bitter person. She also seems to have little understanding of the reality of medical career progression in the past. When was it easy or smooth to become a consultant? when was it not competative?
How many "career grades" or "trust grades" did you see in the past? This is the problem...they are being removed..so you either get a training post or you get kicked out. Locum jobs are far worse than the old long trust contract.
