Traitor in our midst

A medical student who goes my the name of the pseudonym 'Alex Thomas' has been slagging off her colleagues in the Guardian. Dr Rant has heard from several reliable sources that Lana Williams may be hiding behind the cover of Alex Thomas; Lana Williams is a medical student in London who is due to graduate in 2011, so she is uniquely qualified to be giving us the benefit of her vast knowledge and experience of the NHS. The rather outlandish arrogance of this medical student has to be seen to be believed, apparently Alex has lost patience with GPs; one just wonders just how well informed this young medical student is regarding the current crisis in primary care. The piece is completely incoherent and demonstrates a real lack of understanding of the key issues:

"The main point that politicians and the general public are increasingly warming to is that if individuals do not like the offer of employment that is on the table from the Department of Health then they are free to leave the profession."

Alex, my dear, I suggest you research your stories a little bit before writing this low quality dross. The government and DoH made zero effort to negotiate with GPs for many months, while smearing GPs with a dishonest campaign of propaganda in the press, before making an insulting offer that they were not willing to negotiate at all. In a similar vein I suppose Alex thinks that the Police should just lump their insulting pay offer, as they are free to leave the Police force if they wish, what sparkling logic. The concept of 'free' is not such a black and white issue when one is tied to a mortgage, partner and children, and when one has invested many many years specialising in General Practice.

"Many senior figures within NHS management and the Department of Health have said that there are some senior doctors are refusing to attend internal and external management meetings and negotiations unless they are being paid to attend - on top of their salaries, at GMC rates that is about £100 an hour. Is it any wonder doctors are being left out of negotiations? This is scandalous and downright cheeky."

It appears that Alex likes to swallow the propaganda fed to her by the government propaganda machine, it can be very dangerous to swallow things without checking where they came from first. Next time Alex I suggest that you check what's between your lips before you gobble it down. Amazingly a medical student criticising all her senior GP colleagues has the nerve to call GPs 'cheeky'. Alex seems to think that the majority of GPs are happy with the government's management of primary care, and that the noise is only 'the rumblings of discontent from a highly vocal minority'. One wonders why the government ignored the majority of patients regarding opening hours Alex, it couldn't possibly be that they want to open up Primary Care to some rather hungry private corporations.

"They knew and I know that if they went into my old City firm with the sheer arrogance they display as medical students they would have their bollocks chewed off by lunchtime."

This quote is unbelievable. Has anyone out there ever seen anyone working in the City display arrogance? Can Alex see the rank hypocrisy of her words? Pot, kettle, black. I have many friends who work in the City and they would openly admit that many of their colleagues are unpleasantly arrogant and obnoxious, I would say the opposite of my medical colleagues, I can't comment on Alex's friends though. Maybe we aren't as militantly political as we should be as a profession, but this does no excuse the government's appalling behaviour in making no effort to cooperate or negotiate.

"I'm fed up with hearing that morale is at an all-time low when everywhere I go I see contented doctors who are happy to teach students and treat patients. They have made peace with the fact that they did not become bankers or lawyers and are happy to get on with it."

Alex Thomas seems to equally obnoxious when acting under a different pseudonym 'Spider Monkey', apparently she is 'still waiting for the exodus from the profession over MTAS, or was it MMC', obviously the Spider Monkey didn't notice the rather large number of our colleagues that have emigrated or are in the process of jacking medicine in.

" When the exodus happens at least my generation of doctors can stop worrying about their job security....Hundreds of people is not an exodus - hundreds of people go to Oz for fun and frolics every year any way."

Thanks for pointing out the benefits of MTAS and MMC to your generation Alex, it's just a great shame that you are so terribly wrong again. If you continue your career as a doctor then one day you will look back on your comments and be very very embarrassed indeed. MTAS and MMC will be extremely bad for your generation in many many ways. The government is flooding the market with doctors, so that it can force doctors of the future to work for poorer terms and conditions in the brave new NHS. This brave new privatised NHS will be bad for doctors and bad for patients, as health care is run for profit and not on the basis of clinical need. I am sure Alex thinks this is a great idea though, there will undoubtedly be a new CMO by then.

"There will not be blood in the corridors of Whitehall just because some irate GP with his own blog and an inflated sense of his own importance is fuming about his work/life balance."

I'm thinking......fuck right off you nauseating adolescent.