Marching towards the end
I am going home in few months. On a professional level, I am relieved! I watched the medical profession in this country being sabotaged by the government. Many of my friends had their future destroyed before them during this last month. As a result of the government new job application methodology, its rumoured that 6000 doctors working in the UK are now jobless (effective August 07). When I came here in 1997, the MRCP and FRCS were the internationally prestigious and accepted standards for training but every year, their reputation has eroded bit by bit. The UAE abandonment of sending trainee to the UK for post graduate training is in my view justified (any doubts in my mind have been removed in the last month). In this country, the labour government decided that they know more about training doctors than doctors themselves, turning the NHS into a political loss-gain game and using the future of young doctors as objects to achieving their political goals.
In 1997, the UK was the destination of choice for many doctors wanting to build up their careers. Today, March 2007, the NHS is seriously leaking good doctors to the rest of the world.
On a more personal and fun level, I went to Scotland skiing last weekend with a bunch of friends. We ended up staying in Glenlivet house, and had the big Victorian mansion with more rooms than we could discover only for the four of us. The weather on the first day was just perfect and we had good 6 hours of hard core skiing. I went home that day and could not move a muscle. On the second day unfortunately, the weather was too windy and all the ski slopes in Scotland were closed. My plan was to enjoy skiing on the first day and not worry about pictures, and then use the second day as a photo shoot (knowing that everything will ache then and I wont be able to ski much anyway on the second day) but that was shattered due to bad weather.
PS: This post is dedication to the consultants in the West Midland for having the balls to stand up to the government and refuse to interview applicants whose names have been spat out by MMC/MTAS as the only people to be allowed into the ST3 stage of training. I salute you!
March 7th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Congratulations in advance for your coming back to the Emirates…
El-Emarat ti3tazbkum wu tifkhar ib2ahlha wu shababha…I’m sure u’ll be one of the best intellectual resource to our country! Proud of u!
March 8th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
;(
March 9th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
What’s the change that’s been made and has destroyed your friends’ careers? As a Brit, I was sad to read your comments - what is the government doing! Crazy.
March 11th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Chris, this article summarises the issue. Basically the government has taken the power to appoint doctors from individual deaneries (based on candidate CV and an interview) to a centralised computerised system where senior doctors never see a candidate before their name is spat out by MTAS (IT System) and even when they interview the candidate, they have no power of oppointment - all they do is mark them and forward the names back to the concerned government department.
http://drgrumble.blogspot.com/2007/03/call-for-training-chaos-inquiry.html
March 11th, 2007 at 8:41 am
more on MTAS/MMC blunder:
http://drgrumble.blogspot.com/2007/03/raging-against-mtas.html
March 11th, 2007 at 8:48 am
March 11th, 2007 at 8:52 am
March 14th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
That’s just sad. I suspect junior doctors would be the prime victims of this government interference. You’re right about the membership exams slowly losing credibility. Word is they’re going to be done with in the next 5 years or so.
Good luck with the move down here. I hope the transitioning back goes smoothly :)
March 24th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
To9al inshalah bil salmeh doctor ;) !
Hope you had fun in scotland!
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:57 pm
hellooo…april is here…
April 5th, 2007 at 11:18 am
hi sultan .
we are proudly emerati.. and proud of such PPl.
u should be here .. u should be in u.a.e long time ago.. am sure they need u and y’r skills.
wish u a perfect life.. well done for being a succefull MAN..
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April 7th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
HAppy BIrthday TO YOu Cha Cha cHA!
April 8th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Happy birthday!!
:D
Its really nice to get to know other ppl who are born on the same day as you are!!! :D
7/04 rockssssssss!
April 8th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
happy birthday and to9al bel salamah insha2allah… ^_^