Creating a level playing field can be an uphill task

Mr Surinder Sharma, national director of equality and human rights at
the Department of Health, refuses to comment on the plight of the
International Medical Doctors. However Sharma's role is to try to ensure
that no NHS patient or employee is disadvantaged in terms of their health
or job prospects because of their race, sex, age, faith, sexuality, or
disability.

Perhaps he has something to say to Junior Doctors like me who face
the prospect of being not considered for future jobs because of the colour
of my passport. I suppose having been employed by the NHS for the past 4
years doesn’t matter in this case!

We would also like to hear about his thoughts about NHS trusts
employing desperate overseas doctors through honorary SHO contracts
whereby they do the same work as any other junior doctor though only not
get paid anything for it. I suppose this isn’t exploitation because the
voluntarily signed up for it!

Maybe he could make his position clear about the recent job adverts
for junior doctors by overeager NHS trusts specifying EEA and local
candidates only, when the recent policy changes by DOH and Home office
should apply only to doctors needing work permits. ( according to the
reply I received from Home Office and NHS employers )

Or possibly he could say a few words to the thousands of unemployed
overseas doctors (who are planning to protest in front of the DOH on 21-04
-06) who face the prospect of being uprooted with their families on a
short notice by knee jerk policies.

Tough times indeed! But for whom?

Competing interests:
overseas doctor

The new immigration law for junior doctors ,on its face value,
appears to be a huge disappointment for employed or job-seeking
international medical graduates in the UK. This is not only a shocker for
those young doctors in the UK but also for a huge number of under-graduate
doctors all over the world , as many had aspired to be UK-trained during
the post-graduation phase of their careers.They also must have heard from
their predecessors , as we did , that British medical training is the
sweetest apple that a doctor can dream to taste. This has been the story
for ages and has resulted in flooding of doctors in this country from
overseas.

Let's see the other side of the story. These young and equally
meritorious doctors in comparison to any UK or EEA graduate, had they
served their own countries following their graduation would had benfitted
the cause of their motherland immensely . Unfortunately , some of the
countries from where IMGs most migrate from ,like India , are over-
producing doctors , where there is bread for only the very best! So, till
now , it was a saga of major brain drain from developing nations. The
greener pasture of the UK with promises of easier career advancements and
cosier lives alluring those young doctors to the attainable option of
migration.

The whip of the new rule is undoubtedly going to stop this tradition.
This would going to result in a change in the outlooks of would be or
fresh IMGs to first concentrate serving the soil to where they belong to
rather fly to the shelter the UK health system was offering them . Again,
with the route to escape from homelands being closed , only the most
dedicated and determined will endeavour to become doctors and these are
the people the developing countries need to generate and retain. The
mushrooming of new medical schools everyday and the crazy rush to become a
doctor among a majority of adolescents and young adults should be on the
decline in these much deprived nations.

Again, in countries like India , Pakistan, Sri Lanka etc , the scope
for further post graduate training should be more than what it is at
present. In some countries , the post-gradute training places are
allocated on basis of caste and tribe rather than merit, making future
prospects of young ambitious doctors even gloomier.Unless the government
in those countries be more sensible , these countries can face a dearth of
doctors as well because the carrot of the Uk would no longer be there to
allure people to take up medicine.

On balance it appears that in future , instead of the traditional
migration, serving the home country will be the priority for the IMGs. The
scope for medical post graduate training needs to increase in those
countries from where IMGs migrate from. With these well-trained and
dedicated young brains serving their own countries it is quite clear
that who is going to gain. So, could the new law be a blessing in
disguise?

Competing interests:
None declared

Its a shamful reality that system has suddenly become so unfair for
non EEA doctors. I can feel the impact that after completing my research
once i will apply for Spr post, I will be turned down because I am neither
Uk nor EEA national.
GMC took PLAB test almost every day in order to generate revenue.
Structure of PLAB was changed and it is run so often because to fulfil the
shortage of doctors in NHS since last many years. Now once there is no
more shortage of doctors, so instead of stopping PLAB, which is a money
making machine by now, this new law has been introduced. It is quite clear
that what the intentions are: To get rid of foriegn doctors who are in
training or waiting for job after passing PLAB test, but at the same time
keep generating revenues and exploiting new foreign doctors who have
little information about the situation. I think the right way is otherway
around i.e. to stop running PLAB test and let these foreign doctors get a
fair opportunity through Permit free traing to apply and seek for the
jobs.
If there is no demand of doctors in UK, there should not be any PLAB test
to recruit more doctors.

Competing interests:
None declared

When your current employer advertises a post that you occupied less than 4 years ago, but now specifies - "UK and EEA applicants only", you can not help but shiver. Yes, this time in 2002, as an SHO at the very hospital I am working at now, I applied for the Senior SHO post advertised this week. I got the job. 12 months later, I was appointed to the SpR rotation. Now, only a few more years later, "I" (well, not exactly me) am barred from applying. This is how close it feels.

I am told that my job is safe! Well, maybe for the moment it is. The feeling seems to be that we (SpRs) wont be flushed out of the type 1 training rotations. I suspect there are too many of us for the system to just flush out at the moment. When we finish and apply for consultant jobs however, we will not be employed ahead of a UK/EEA colleague, unless they, the UK/EEA candidate is unemployable. The current SHO/ Senior SHO adverts specify - only UK/EEA to apply. Fastforward, to consultant posts in the near future and we might have the same stipulation. We will therefore sit and hope that our colleagues attend their interviews in a drunken state or something nastier so that the gates may then be opened for us. Thats the future. In the present, our colleagues, the SHOs that we have spent hours teaching and preparing so that they could follow on our footsteps are barred from doing so. It could have been me. Maybe, the system will catch up with me.

It is sad indeed. People have made sacrifices beleiving there would be fair competition, where the best will make it, only to be told - "there will be no competition anymore. Well, there is competition, but you are barred from participating."

I accept that UK graduates need jobs as well but this is a very cruel and unfair way to do things. People's livelihoods will be lost. If people knew that there would be no competition, I am sure a lot would not have come at all. Is the GMC going to refund all those who paid and wrote PLAB exams beleiving in fair competition? My guess is, they wont. They will argue that they (GMC) never promised anyone any job. I think they did! (together with the BMA/BMJ). They told people about (un)equal opportunities!
To those who are affected: Fellow colleagues, I sincerely sympathise with the situation you suddenly find yourselves in. I hope the BMA can negotiate a solution (negotiationg for salary increases etc is no longer a priority). Your pain is felt even by those that are not affected (including UK colleagues that I have talked to). Injustice is painful, not only to the direct victims, but to all kind and caring people. I wish all of you well in whatever you choose to do with your lives.

Competing interests:
I am not a UK or EEA national. I belong to the world (Earth).