BMJ  2005;331:696 (24 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7518.696

Letter

Women doctors and their careers: what now?

The changing UK medical workforce's effect on planning and delivery of services

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Allen highlights the changing nature of the medical workforce.¹ This has significant implications for workforce planning and service delivery. For example, the wishes of a number of flexible trainees to continue part time working in the early consultant years means that more trainees (and therefore national training numbers) will be needed to fill consultant posts to deliver the whole time equivalents required. This applies particularly in specialties with a substantial proportion of flexible trainees, such as paediatrics, psychiatry, palliative medicine, general practice, and anaesthetics.

Many specialties are well suited to sessional or part time work, be it in the operating theatre, outpatient clinic, or laboratory. The new consultant contract should make it easier to design such working patterns. In practice, part time clinical roles in hospital medicine have long been common, senior doctors taking on professional, managerial, or private practice commitments.² However, a larger cultural change will be . . . [Full text of this article]

Faculty of Health and Social Care, University of the West of England, Glenside Campus, Bristol BS16 1DD selena.gray@uwe.ac.uk

School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF14 7XL

Royal College of Physicians, London NW1 4LE

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