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FEATURE: MTAS: which way now? BMJ 2007; 334: 1300 [Full text]

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Deputy Chief Medical Officer's views on MTAS

Roy L. Soiza   (24 June 2007)

Deputy Chief Medical Officer's views on MTAS 24 June 2007
Roy L. Soiza, Clinical Lecturer Dept of Medicine & Therapeutics, University of Aberdeen AB25 2ZD Send response to journal: Re: Deputy Chief Medical Officer's views on MTAS	I was struck that Martin Marshall, deputy chief medical officer for England, felt able to assert that some aspects of MTAS had gone well, but unable to comment on what had gone badly or required changing, until the Tooke review is published. The suffering of those caught up in MTAS, obvious in both hospitals I work at, has been loudly expressed throughout the country in the press, internet fora and via public demonstrations. This cannot be passed off as "anecdote". Marshall writes “I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t believe that postgraduate specialist education doesn’t need to be improved.” Quite apart from the irony that such a poorly constructed sentence on an MTAS form would have almost certainly cost the candidate the chance of any interviews, I believe many would disagree that MTAS improves postgraduate specialist education in any way. Yours sincerely, Dr. Roy L. Soiza Competing interests: None declared