Practicality and cost of revalidation plans must be assessed

EDITOR—Scanning the contents of the BMJ for 30 October 1999, I thought I detected an editorial masterstroke. The education and debate section contained five articles on revalidation, 1 followed by—here's the flash of inspiration—an article on the problems of medical staffing in our hospitals.2

Sadly, this seems to have been pure serendipity. Far from “debate,” the authors all seemed blissfully unaware of any link. Article followed article on revalidation, describing teams of doctors, busily revalidating teams of doctors. In apparent isolation, the last article discussed the staffing crisis without mention of the workload to be imposed …