Is herd thinking in medical training leading us astray?

“We (consultants) do more and more, and we see our registrars less and less.” “I can’t get a decent registrar on our professorial unit.” “We know national selection is not fit for purpose.” “My juniors don’t know how to suture.”

I could probably fill pages with similar comments that have been made to me over the past few months by senior consultants—all great trainers with so much to offer, all motivated to teach and to share their experience, yet all distressed by the direction in which they see British medicine going.

I recognise that the plural of anecdote is not data. Nevertheless, it can be challenging to gather data to confirm the opinion of the many—particularly when the …