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As I was driving back to Cardiff from a gruelling 6 hour meeting of the Welsh Obstetrics and Gynaecology Specialist Training Committee in Swansea, I reflected on the 25 agenda items and
asked myself, where is our profession heading to? The most demanding topic of our meeting was Modernising Medical Careers (MMC). Having missed the last meeting in May as I was examining Malaysian students sitting their Masters in obstetrics and gynaecology, I was astounded by
the rapid pace of events and the very tight time scale within which the programme is being rolled out to have the first batch in post by August 2007. Equally demanding is the pressure on those who “volunteer” to short-list candidates, sitting arduously in front of a computer screens going through and scoring tens if not hundreds of CVs one after the other. I asked myself, what happened to the old days where one sat in the comfort of his or her sofa over the weekend with cup of coffee or some other drink fulfilling the task at their own pace! The applicants are equally warned that they must respond within short period if they are short-listed or they’ll lose the opportunity for interview and equally, when the job offer is made or they’ll lose that magical ST1 or ST2 job. The message is clear; stay home and don’t go on that Ski holiday boys and girls!
Speaking of ST1 and ST2 posts, their strictly structured training programme and assessment tools such as OSATS (Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills), Mini-CEX (Mini Clinical Exercise) often pronounced Mini- Kex by those who are shy from calling it Mini-Sex for obvious reasons, CBD
(Case Based Discussion) and MSF (Multi Source Feedback), I wondered if our happy days as resident Senior House Officers working in consultant teams and yearning for that College visit to “vent our spleen” were golden days or prehistoric compared to modern trends! I see those resident days returning but only as resident consultant on call without the usual fun and wild parties of the “Doctors Mess”. Of course, no sooner trainees finish ST1 and ST2 years, they have to face the core curriculum modules and thereafter the “Advanced Training Years”, 19 modules in all, not to mention the annual RITA festivals
and culminating in PMETB’s award of the CCT. As I began to think of how much this will add to existing pressures; NHS service delivery, undergraduate teaching, and University research for those like me, I wondered if we have already lost the hardly won reduction in our sessions negotiated in the new
consultant contract. By then, I decided its time to turn the radio on and listen to relaxing classical music!