Physician assistants

[Muffin2]

this is why labour is so ****ing stupid. creating dangerous half doctors when we have plenty highly skilled unemployed junior doctors ready to take up any post. The people who keep voting for them need there bloody heads examined.

[yeliab_cram]

whilst true, you miss the ultimate **** up to come.

The government realised that with the implementation of the european working time directive, they were going to need massively more house officers - basically if you cut the average 100 hour week into 48 hour weeks then thats twice as many junior docs you need to do the same job.

They promptly increased medical school intake by 56% and shock-horror there are now enough F1s to run the wards without breaking european law or causing the NHS to implode.

hu-zah! i hear you shout. Well done Tony & Gordan you clever chappies. Time for a frothy bevvy.

Unfortunately, the government are a bunch of short sighted pillocks.

You see all of those F1 - double the number we had previously, are not going to be F1s all their lives. no, no. They are all going to want to be GPs or consultants and now, thanks to MMC, both these choices involve getting onto a specialist training programme.

But oh shit, we cant afford to have twice the number of registrars, they are really expensive. And although we probably need a shag load more consultants, we sure as **** cant afford to buy twice as many of them.

So here's what we'll do. We will 1) waste lots of money training doctors for 7 years then sack half of them. and 2) manufacture permanent house officers in the guise of specialist nurses and doctors assistants. There cannot possibly be any negaitive impact on patient care with such a well thought through strategy.

Workforce planning at its best.

[trouble]

Yep 2nd year med student (grad entry). I agree the job situation is bad just now but what i ment is that it will be worse for the people behind us.....basicly when all the PAs really start doing there stuff (if it gets that far), theres potential for med school intake to fall. TBH tho im not happy about the competion for jobs and the doc unemployment i feel like its a part of life in most proffesions, and i dont see why it should be any different just because we are medics.

The biggest problem i see in all the nonsense going on at the moment is that the system isnt designed well enough to identify the people with the best skills, CV etc, it just seems like a lot of pot luck and a massive game of pin the tail on the donkey. If you look at any other application processes outside medicine the application forms/CV etc are well geared to allow plenty of information for both the applicant and employer .........the qns we answer are to be blunt rubbish.

Anyways thats my 2 cents worth, i know not everyone will feel the same and maybe i wont when its me thats unemployed, (by that time they might have sorted it out and ill be one of the ones unemployed because im rubbish, lol)

x

[f_debelder]

Marc, excellent post...going to save that as one of the most concise descriptions of what the consequences of MMC are

[Dr Noodle]

Originally Posted by yeliab_cram

there is low unemployment for F1 posts, but the numbers who didnt get into ST training are rather significant. Shoving them into 1 year FTFSA posts is not solving the problem. Its a very serious problem for all of us, especially as the system used for selecting candidates for these highly prized jobs have so far failed to pick out the best and brightest. Lucky ****ing dip.

This is why my parents don't want me doing medicine. I guess I'll just have to take my services elsewhere. Hmph!

[Iceman]

I've had to stop reading threads about MMC/non-medical practitioners/EWTD etc. on doctors.net.uk as they make me want to cry (not really, but almost).

The short-sightedness beggars belief.

[Victoria09]

me too. The supposedly 'reliable' career path is the only way I can justify getting myself into even more huge amounts of debt than I already am...

[orlando2007]

Have all you medics only sat up and noticed that the government is trying to dumb down the professions now that this PA role will impact directly on you.They have been undermining the roles of the AHPs for years with assistant practitioner roles in Physio/Radiography/OT etc these were suppossed to allow advanced practice for the higher grades up to and including Consultant roles.But what has really happened is they have basically just replaced the lower tier of the newly graduated staff thats why 70% of Physios and 20% of radiographers from this summer are still without their first Job.And at the last count I think there were only 4 Consultant therapy radiographers in the country and 10 diagnostic radiographer consultants out of a workforce of about 20000.The government are happy to increase the number of undergraduate/graduate training places for medics etc but will not provide the ongoing training places as they basicly want SHOs for life doing the routine work also a surplus of people chasing jobs will eventually keep wage inflation down or so they hope but what will really happen is that huge numbers will say farewell to these shores for sunnier shores.And while at present there might be an oversupply of training in Physio/OT/Radiography etc there is also a huge demographic timebomb as about 50% of these current professionals are aged over 45 years old.The government screwed over the AHPs over these assistant roles and the agenda for change contracts and got away with it and as at the time it didnt affect medics/dentists they kept silent so they assume they will also get away with screwing over you guys as well and lets face it a labour government really still sees the professions and the medical profession in particular as a socialist crusade against a bastion of conservatism as Aneurin Bevan said he had to stuff there mouths with gold to get the NHS up and running now I think ministers just what to stuff the professions full stop.

[heed]

i smell New Zealand coming....... oh yes. book my ticket.

[Dr Noodle]

I've always considered Canada after hearing how good things are there from nurses who have worked there but I've heard on this forum that it's hard to get posts there if you didn't train there.