BMJ  2007;334:1180 (9 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.39234.460440.3A

Letters

MTAS

Lessons from the disaster

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

Some lessons must be swiftly learnt from the Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) experience.¹ The BMA and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges have been made to look feeble and ineffectual after entering into "partnership" roles with the Department of Health. The postgraduate deans have been notably silent and have behaved as willing accomplices in the promotion of MTAS. The deaneries have declined as an independent force in medical training and are struggling to fulfil their correct role in providing quality educational leadership because of over-dependence on political approval linked to their funding mechanism. The reputation of UK medical training has taken a damaging hit.

The royal colleges, threatened by loss of power and influence and undermined by the emergence of the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB), seem to have been all too easily lured into partnership agreements, using a set of desirable motherhood and apple pie objectives . . . [Full text of this article]

University Hospital Aintree, Liverpool L9 7AL

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