Both Sides Of The Fence

As the dangerous empowerment of the under trained continues with the decision to hand nurses the power to make crucial decisions about whether to resuscitate a critically ill patient, a voice of reason has been heard on Doctors.net:

"Just got up and switched on my computer to read this on the BBC site. I am a final year med student, about to apply for F1/2 jobs and looking ahead to finals in a few months. In a previous life I was a registered nurse, including working for over four years in that role before deciding to do medicine.

I am utterly disheartened by this statement, as for me it is almost the straw that breaks the camels back after the MTAS uncertainty, the recent announcement of our likely salary without banding and an e-mail yesterday implying that because of the large number of EU grads applying for F1 we may not be able to apply for a run-through F1/2 programme this year.

I went to medical school for a number of reasons. I wanted to stay in healthcare, I wanted to challenge myself and develop myself. I did not want to be a charge nurse or nurse manager and I did not want to be a clinical nurse specialist or whatever because I felt that even with advanced practice courses I would not have the knowledge and skills that I believed were necessary to do the job that I wanted to do - i.e. practice medicine. So, I put my money where my mouth is (and believe me, with a young family to support it has been a hell of a lot of money) and I applied, was successful and went to medical school. Now, on a personal level I am very pleased to have done, but looking at it objectively, I wonder if I have been a bloody fool. All this expense, effort and sacrifice only to find I have joined a profession apparently despised, and certainly devalued, by this government, neglected by the 'union' (the BMA) and for some reason, not apparently widely supported by the media. Doctors are apparently superfluous in today’s society.

Nowadays, we have nurses running around trying to be second-class doctors, instead of first class nurses, taking on more and more extended practice, instead of actually nursing patients on the ward? This leaves HCAs or Auxiliaries nursing the patients, a task that 20 years ago required three years of quite rigorous training in anatomy, physiology etc (pre-dumbing down) and the passing of exams, on the basis of no training. Meanwhile, doctors are sold down the river and the junior doctor is increasingly handicapped in terms of what procedures we can and cannot do.

This is not the anti-nursing diatribe people might perceive it to be. I believe I speak from experience of both systems of education, and practical experience of nursing, plus the feeling that there was nothing in my nursing training that would have remotely prepared me for some of the decision making now devolved to nurses. And if I thought that before I started medicine, I know it for sure now. Nurses should nurse, doctors should doctor. If one wishes to change roles in either direction, retrain. Or better still, save all the time and money myself and other nursing colleagues now at medical school have spent, learn less, busk your way through without medical training and earn more.

I cannot wait to get out of this country, I really am finished with it here. At least until sanity returns to the government, the BMA and whoever else is responsible for (a) trying to destroy medicine and (b) standing by and letting it happen.

One question: I left the BMA a while ago as it is clear they are firmly on the side of the anti-doctor. Who could one join that might in some way represent doctors & medical student's interests effectively?

Rant over, I apologise if this seems OTT, it is just the way I see it."

This is the way things are, a thorough education and proper training are no longer seen as being essential for positions of great power and responsibility. The BMA and the government have a lot to answer for, excellent doctors are quitting medicine as nurses are empowered beyond their means. Just hope and pray that you have a doctor looking after you when you are critically ill.