Why should i care about MMC???

[yeliab_cram]

Anyone who wants to understand why we are all making such a fuss over MMC should most definately spend the next six minutes of their life watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk-KK19tybs

[yeliab_cram]

I also recommend having a read of this:

http://ferretfancier.blogspot.com/20...peaks-out.html

It is taken from doctors.net and is written by Phillip Smith, the junior doctor who heckled hewitt on question time a few weeks ago.

This is the reality of MTAS and MMC. It is something anyone at medical school or thinking of applying to medical school should be fully aware of.

[yeliab_cram]

finally, read Jasper Gerards opinion in the observer:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comme...073587,00.html

This summarises quite well in my opinion, the general feeling from the non-doctor side of the coin. In the responses one can get a feel of the frustration felt by doctors at the way in which the debate has been spun by both the media and the government to make doctors look like the guilty party.

There is but one word. Shameful.

[loratwopointone]

It's awful isn't it. I was speaking to my partner about this today and he know nothing of the situation really. I've submitted this to "stumbleupon" to try and make the truth about the massive faliure that this scheme has been so far.

I feel for all those junior doctors without work this year. It sucks =[

[racheljane]

Thanks for putting that link up Marc, well worth 6 minutes of anyone's time whether med student/prospective, health professional or NHS patient now or in the future. This sentence from your second link summed it up to me:

"...less training funds, less training time, less training years doesn’t produce the same quality doctor – end of story. MMC is a tool for government to say ‘we have more consultants.’ Actually they will have ‘more very junior, inexperienced consultants,’ a very scary thought for patients, and for doctors."

I've been quite appalled at the lack of media/public interest in this. It affects everyone. How on earth has Hewitt kept her job??

[yeliab_cram]

absolutely. In fact it was that quote that lead me to start this thread. It is exactly what i have been discussing with my medic mates for months.

Hewitt has sucessfully sidestepped the fundamental problems with MMC by diverting attention onto MTAS. Which whilst utterly shambolic, is merely one manifestation of the flawed system.

We must bring apprenticeship and high standards back to the NHS. I dont care if it takes 15 or 20 years to train the consultant of 2020, so long as they are fantastic at their job!

[loratwopointone]

Mmhm. As a patient surely you'd want a consultant that bloody well were good at what they did and had enough experience to be fully competent. As a future doctor I know I don't care how many years I am in training, just so long as when I do finally become a consultant I'm good at what I'm doing.

Before the government come up with any more schemes there needs to be a full consultation of actual doctors. It worries me about what's going to happen when I graduate. Let alone those people having to apply for training in the next couple of years.

What's the point of consultants that have had less years training and less hours training. Are they going to be as competent as someone who trained longer to get where they were today? I don't think so.

The MTAS was a shambolic scheme, putting so little importance on extra degree's, research and all that.

It really is appauling. It worries me how little the general population know of MMC in general and just that the MTAS didn't work.

[yeliab_cram]

The responses to that article are very telling, i think this one by an actuary (ie an educated man, who is not a doctor) is excellent:

Mr Gerard

Like many in the public, Ms Hewitt has succeeded in pulling the wool over your eyes.

There has always been competition for jobs in the NHS - indeed some doctors are currently unemployed.

The reason why junior doctors feel so strongly over the system that Ms Hewitt is about to introduce is because it will create a generation of doctors for whom there is no future in the NHS and they will be forced to emigrate - this will have a massively detrimental effect on patient care. Why?

1) According to Ms Hewitt, there are currently 29,000 doctors working in the UK who have applied for the 18,500 "run through" training positions.

2) Those doctors who fail to get a "run through" training position will have next to no chance of getting a training position again. This is the new rules that Ms Hewitt has introduced. Those that get training positions this year are guaranteed training positions in the future. Those that don't cannot.

This is different from ANY other job application system in the UK. If I don't get a job as a journalist at the Observer, I can go away and perhaps do another job at a local newspaper to learn the skills I may have been lacking. If I fail, I can always get a job at another newspaper.

Doctors cannot. They either get into training positions in the NHS this August or they go abroad.

3) That means that (29,000 - 18,500 =) 11,500 doctors from this August will have to leave the UK and train abroad. The laughable thing is that even if they finish their training abroad, the system that Ms Hewitt has introduced means that they can never come back to the UK.

4) It costs the British taxpayer £250k to put a doctor through university. If all the doctors who don't get a training position this August go abroad, this will cost the British taxpayer £2.9 BILLION. If only half of them go abroad (as indicated would be the case by a recent survey carried out by the British Medical Association), the British taxpayer will still lose £1.5 billion.

5) Further, if half of the 11,500 doctors go abroad in August, what will happen to patient care? If we need 29,000 doctors to work in the NHS now, how will we cope with approximately 23,000 doctors in August?

6) And thousands of doctors have only ONE chance to get that training position. Because of the failure of the ridiculously expensive computer system used by Ms Hewitt to select doctors, thousands of doctors have been told that:

"sorry - yes your application was probably okay but our system couldn't sort it. Instead we will give you ONE interview and one interview only to get one of those 18,500 run through training positions".

In synopsis, junior doctors are probably angry because:

a) patient healthcare will suffer due to the reduction in doctors; and

b) thousands of them will be forced to leave the NHS and the UK PERMANENTLY because of a job application system that is "one strike or you have to emigrate"

c) it's a COLLASAL waste of taxpayers money.

And no, I am not a junior doctor. I am an actuary who's taken an interest in this because I am really concerned that in August our health service is going to be rubbish because of an incompetent Secretary of State for Health who has wasted the billions of pounds that have been put at her disposal ($4billion Health IT system that isn't fit for service anyone?).

As is this by David Berridge - i wonder if its the same DB who is a vascular surgeon in Leeds?? who knows, anyway:

Jasper Gerard has so much to say, but fogot find out the facts or to think beforehand.

Of course no one has a right to a particular job.
But please don't ask them to train for nine years, and them dispose of them via a crude MTAS selection system, which does not take account of qualifications and experience. With no second chance to complete their training or get a job in Britain.

The new system of traing/careers for doctors was bound to produce a surplus of doctors, yet as late as December 2006, the govermnment said that those who wanted to continue training posts (leading to Registrar or Consultant grade) would be given the chance. This is not so, with about 12,00 denied that the opportunity.

Many 'Junior' doctors work 12 hour shifts, 80 hour weeks. That is probably the only way that waiting times are at all reasonable in A&E, or any other department.
So to dispose of 12,000 or so is going to do wonders for waiting times and the NHS.
I put 'Junior' in inverted commas, because they are fully qualified doctors, and carry out A&E care, perform operations etc. The 'new' breed of junior doctors will have only a quarter of the training.

Faced with the arrogance, the refusal to listen, and the so-called apologies of Patricia Hewitt, sensible discussion has been sidelined, leaving shouting as the only way to get a word in.

And faced with the bile and arrogance of Jasper Gerard is it little wonder I no longer buy the Observer.

[Mattie]

Marc! 6 minutes!!! It ended up being more like 40 minutes!!! I found loads of clips of Patricia Hewitt. I don't know how that woman can live with herself. She is soooooo annoying in interviews, never answering the questions and she always tries to make things that are really really bad (aka the MMC) look good or just blame it on the Royal Colleges (in the case of MTAS)! Grrrrr... I can blame her for my increase in BP as well.

I do worry about the experience that junior doctors are getting or will be getting in the future. With the introduction of the European Working Time Directive and the MMC they are working a tiny fraction of what SHOs were in the past. When I applied to med school I looking forward to the SHO years. Not really because of the long hours but because you get to try your hand at loads of different specialties without having to decide too early. Now there are going to be consultants who aren't really 100% dedicated to their specialty and with much less training! I know they aren't going to be totally incompentent but they won't have those years of experience.

[loratwopointone]

I'd much rather work more hours for a few years than be less competent. I know the doctors coming through MMC aren't going to be rubbish, but by comparison to those who have had more training they won't be as competent at all through no fault of their own.

*sigh*