Barred from the competition: Where do they go from here?
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).
Rapid Response:
Barred from the competition: Where do they go from here?
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).
Competing interests: No competing interests