STEPHEN Lynn is mistaken if he feels that junior doctors in Scotland are looking for special treatment (September 1). The NHS in Scotland has to provide a service to its patients, wherever they live, and we all care deeply that the service is adequate.
The surgical service at the Vale of Leven Hospital has been downgraded, from an acute unit that was able to take emergency admissions, to only performing non-urgent and relatively low-risk procedures. I had been due to take up a training post at the Vale, doing surgery, in February 2004, but had heard rumours about the downgrading. It wasn't until the week before I was due to move house and begin work there that I managed to track down anyone who knew whether my services would be required. They weren't, and staff who had been given jobs in the Vale were being moved to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, to cope with the increased number of patients being re-routed there. I had to change all my plans, and relocate at the last minute.
The idea that staff shortages were being cited by Argyll and Clyde Health Board as an excuse for the closure of acute services is absolutely appalling to me, given that I and my colleagues were poised to begin working there, and were given no notice that we would have to move.
My issue with the new plans for medical training has nothing to do with thinking that rural posts are somehow unglamorous. My own preference would always be to work in a rural hospital if I were allowed to make that choice. The problem is that under the new scheme every medical applicant will be judged according to a set of as yet unreleased criteria, but even those scoring well will not be given a choice about where they go. The best automatically will be placed in the posts which the MMC has decided are the most prestigious, while those further down the list will be sent to whichever posts are left.
This puts me in a ridiculous situation where if I am judged to be a good doctor I am likely to be sent to a city teaching hospital that I have no desire to work in, while peripheral hospitals are likely to be staffed by doctors who have scored less well, and whose enthusiasm for the job is hampered by the fact that they have lives and commitments elsewhere.
Dr Louise Hyde, Lorne & Islands District General Hospital, Oban.
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