Modernising Medical Careers laid bare

Sir: The laudable aim to make "an honest attempt to accelerate
training and assure the fundamental abilities of the next generation of
doctors" was fatally flawed when the acceleration was always going to be
over a shorter course given the restrictions of the European Working Time
Directive. To then compound this by favouring, for instance, a Bulgarian
over a doctor from the Indian subcontinent who has spoken English virually
from birth is to concoct an unpalatable stew. And now we go full circle
with the proposal that F2s become ST1s begging the question why was the
transition of house officer to senior house officer system ever tinkered
with. The suspicion is always that cost savings are buried somewhere in
all changes and disempowerment through oversupply is a hidden agenda. The
fact is the system MMC tried to implement was a bastardisation of American
residency programmes that took no account of their system's being designed
for private care and being unrestricted by working time directives. So, as
usual, more NHS money down the drain and, especially if the non-EU doctors
legal appeal succeeds, we begin where we started; and people wonder why
all the money invested in the NHS has produced so little.

Competing interests:
None declared