Very Confused

**owens** · 22-11-2005, 07:08 PM

I am very concerned now after reading some of these threads!!!! I didn't realise how hard it was to find jobs as a junior doctor!!!
Is it true that there are as many as 500 applicant for 1 SHO post? Why as i was under the impression that there was a shortage of doctors?
Or is it that this kind of competetion is for the most high paid jobs?

**physicsgrad** · 06-12-2005, 07:23 PM

"Why as i was under the impression that there was a shortage of doctors?"

Thats the thing everyone thinks and says about the NHS, but actually its not that there is a shortage of doctors, its a shortage of money to fund more doctors!
This irritates me alot, the press go on about shortage of doctors, but theres loads of doctors out there just no money avaliable to employ them.

If this NHS was fully funded without restriction (pretty much impossible) then there would be loads more doctors with jobs, and hence SHO positions would be avaliable.

**JarabArab** · 06-12-2005, 08:00 PM

I agree the NHS is a a vicctim of society...

**yeliab_cram** · 25-12-2005, 05:38 PM

Originally Posted by owens

I am very concerned now after reading some of these threads!!!! I didn't realise how hard it was to find jobs as a junior doctor!!!
Is it true that there are as many as 500 applicant for 1 SHO post? Why as i was under the impression that there was a shortage of doctors?
Or is it that this kind of competetion is for the most high paid jobs?

most med students are garenteed a PRHO job upon qualification, due to the almost national matching scheme. There is a lot of competition for SHO posts, but it is not as bad as you suggest. The real bottleneck is between SHO and Reg, many SHOs want to specialise, but there just arent very many Reg jobs coming up, so you can end uip stuck as an SHO for years more than you need to be.

More doctors are indeed needed, but as the previous posters infer, simply training more doctors is useless if there isnt the financial support to employ them. The EWTD has made things even worse as the NHS now need to employ more docs than ever before to simply to the work currently being done by fewer staff.

**James** · 26-12-2005, 03:50 PM

As Marc says there is a bottleneck at SHO/SpR level. There is a shortage of consultants, and the government has recently vastly increased the number of PRHO/F1 posts to compensate for the newly expanded & new medical schools. Unfortunatly there has been no expansion at SHO level. Along with this, there were a number of 6 month non-rotation jobs eg. A&E, which a lot of new SHO's did whilst finding a place on a proper 2 or 3 year rotation, but these have now all gone and have been swallowed up by the F2 system.