Rapid Responses to:

LETTERS:
Morris J Brown
Raging against MTAS (UK Medical Training Application Service)
BMJ 2007; 334: 549 [Full text]
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[Read Rapid Response] Everybody but the politicians is happy
Ebaa S Al-Ozairi   (19 March 2007)

Everybody but the politicians is happy 19 March 2007
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Ebaa S Al-Ozairi,
SpR Diabetes and Endocrinology, Newcastle. Fullnright Fellowship at Harvard Medical School, USA
NE1 4LP

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Re: Everybody but the politicians is happy

EDITOR- Brown letter highlights a growing divide in the perception of who the doctors of tomorrow should be. The message concerns the MTAS process of Modernizing Medical Careers, a process which seems set to cause very great damage to our trainees in medicine.

Modernisation has done wonders, though not for UK medical career. Medical field is somewhat grumpy right now. It is disillusioned with politicians. It is unimpressed by the public services and above all it is in a state of mess and patients have no say in this. Medical training is now being genetically modified to fit its environment and we should stop this to protect our society.

Change usually makes people uncomfortable, so does the presence of plagiarism and lottery in the medical field which is not part of the physician oath. Medical training should be like custard, fine grained and not lumpy. On one hand, we hear the cry for more doctors; however UK currently in need of more doctors with academic bent than ever before.

Abolishing interviews which are appropriate points to scan personality and surveying grades do not match the new assessment tools objective. Medical practice requires intellect and application. MTAS as the name suggests aims to provide a service and this clearly can not fulfill our obligation to society to assure physicians trained meet the higher state of knowledge, competence and professionalism.

No solution is perfect and we are against ever tougher competition as modernisation rolls on. This issue should no longer be ignored.

Competing interests: None declared