BMJ  2006;332:1033 (29 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7548.1033-b

Letter

New UK policy on overseas doctors

Also affects international medical graduates graduating from UK institutions

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

EDITOR—The Home Office has stipulated that from April 2006, UK medical school graduates who are foreign nationals will strictly fall under the work permit system on completing foundation training.¹ By the end of Foundation Year 2, I will have been in the UK for eight years—long enough to gain the building bricks of medicine, but not long enough to gain residency rights. I read medicine at Cambridge University with the expectations that I could continue postgraduate training here. Otherwise, what use is a primary medical degree without specialist training, unless one is thinking of leaving medicine, say, to go and work in the city?

If this ruling is not overturned, I suggest that undergraduate deans immediately stop accepting foreign students, regardless of the talent.

Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro TR1 3LH jlt27@cantab.net

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Competing interests: None declared.

1. Trewby P, Williams G, Williamson P, Barnes E, Carr P, Crilley J, et al. European doctors and change in UK policy. BMJ 2006;332: 913-4. (15 April.)[Free Full Text]

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