Just as you thought it was safe to go into hospital

Finally, even the BBC has noticed that there will be no doctors on the hospital wards this week as doctors complete their biannual migration.

Yes don't be ill - this month, or next month, or anytime before Christmas. If you want your doctors trained, I would recommend you time your illness for early January 2008. Just after the Christmas break. By then, the doctors will have been in the job for five months, and should know what they are doing.

Research (I love that word, its covers more than Elizabeth Arden over 55s make-up) shows that in Industry it takes five to six months before a person has learnt their job well to be of value to their company. Which is almost exactly the time, when we get ready for the next round of medical chairs.

This year there is a severe shortage of chairs, leaving approximately 10,000 doctors without a job. Many of these are top class graduates, not great at filling out forms and describing themselves in 100 words or less, but prize winners, first class students, able and willing.

Political correctness has gone beserk. It is has been decreed that all doctors must compete on an equal footing. In order not to give bright hard working graduates an unfair advantage, they hvae not been allowed to mention their class of degree, their prizes or any other achievement gained during their student years. So the decision as to who to employ has been made largely on their ability to fill out a form. Bureaucracy begets bureaucracy!

The bureaucrats are in the process of making medicine in their own image. Form filling rules. It no longer matters what happens to a patient, or what you learn from your experience only that you fill in the correct accident form to make sure you are 'covered'. This system will only work if doctors are selected from an early age, on their ability to fill out a form properly. This suits 'Sensitive-Individuals' that is fear-driven, task not people-focused individuals who are not fit to be let out on their own in a mortuary.

It is amazing how much has been lost in the present sandstorm of confusion

1)Modernising medical careers - a way to shorten and cheapen the way we train doctors
2) An IT collapse and fiasco providing a diversion worthy of the French Resistance to make sure no one noticed exactly how many doctors would be unemployed.
3)10,000 unemployed doctors
4) Everyone swapping jobs August 1st - so just make sure you aren't ill.

And now, as everyone is going on holiday, lets take our illnesses abroad.

That comment is truer than I realised. I have had an interesting conversation with a Refugee liason worker, the days of medical tourism are over. Refugees now go to Italy and Germany for their medical care, rather than the UK. It may be easier to get treated here, but the quality is not what it was.

That story reminds me of the time I had a suitcase stolen and lost half its contents. The other half were left with the case, round the corner. I couldn't bear to wear anything that had been left with the case - after all if it wasn't good enough to be stolen, it definitely wasn't good enough for me.

So if our health care isn't good enough for an asylum seeker, why is it good enough for us?

(c) Dr. Liz Miller

http://www.drlizmiller.co.uk