I’ve been interviewed for four jobs, now it turns out that I will only be considered for one of them – and I get to choose which one to be considered for.

I’m sure those of you that care have seen the full wording on the MTAS review already, if not here’s a link. Basically everyone gets an interview in their first choice – and you get to nominate which is your first choice. What’s not so clear is what happens if you’ve already had interviews in your other choices. If you have no idea what MTAS is (you lucky thing) please read Aphra Behn’s review. Then write a letter to your MP.

Now I’ve had four interviews. I’d be happy to work in any of these four places, delighted in fact. If I wasn’t successful in my first choice do I get considered for the other three I’ve already been interviewed in? Or do I get to nominate my first choice, and the notes and scores made by the other interviewers go into the bin? That’s what it looks like.

What a crying waste of effort! Each interview involved meeting 2 consultants for 10 minutes. Roughly that is, for each interview 1 hour of consultant time. Now I’ve had three interviews that will be considered totally worthless. That’s three hours of wasted consultant time. Many of those consultants cancelled clinics to be at the selection panels, for the surgical specialies many of them cancelled their theatre lists.

3 hours of consultant time wasted. And that’s just for me. My friends, B, J, C and P all had four interviews as well. So that’s 15 hours wasted - and that’s just people I spoke to yesterday.

I can’t believe I’ve gone to all this effort to be interviewed for jobs that I’m not going to be considered for. I’m not just angry, I’m f**king livid. I’m just one of 33,000 doctors who’s effing livid with the whole MTAS nonsense. The Junior Doctors Committee of the BMA has pulled out of the review. The Review Panel is disappointed and says that’s up to Doctors whether or not they go to the interview.

So which one should be my first choice?

I applied to four different deanaries:

• No 1. Where I live, where my bookgroup meets, where I know the hospitals, where my cat has a territory and plenty of mice. Also where I have a house and a mortgage.
• No 2 where I want to live, where I really want to work, where I did my elective. But would inconvinence my girlfriend because she would have to move to stay within a 3 hour drive of me. I’d have to move as well. This would cost us about £10 000 between us, as we both own houses.
• No 3 Where my girlfriend lives.
• No 4, About an hour from my girlfriend – also where my parents live.

I was interviewed in this order, 4, 3, 1, and 2. Whilst I was interviewed there was a lot of pressure resulting from the first MTAS review. The Review team were working hard to ensure that the Second Round would be fairer. Whilst I was being interviewed the Consultants were aware that there were ‘Many excellent doctors who had not been shortlisted’ they were under pressure only to appoint the ‘excellent and exceptional’ .

I lurked hard on Doctors.net’s MMC forum. I discovered that there was a box that could be ticked on the interview assessment form which said ‘I do not wish to appoint this applicant’ the rest of the assessment form resulted in a number, which was then to be fed into MTAS Computer which carerfully ensured that no one got their first choice applicant or job.

A quick straw poll on Doctors.net of people who were interviewing showed two groups:

1. These candidates are dreadful, my SHO who didn’t get shortlisted is far better. I have used the ‘I do not want to employ this person’ box quite a lot to ensure that there were plenty of jobs in the second round for Excellent SHOs that were not shortlisted.
2. These candidates are all excellent – it will be difficult to choose between them

Some consultants on Doctors.net posted that they were using this box a lot, because they wanted to ensure that they were plenty of jobs for the excellent doctors who had not been shortlisted. Some of the other hand said that they weren’t using it much because all of the candidates were excellent. I have no idea which if these consultants I met were in camp 1 or camp 2.

But I was nervous for my first three interviews (in Choices, 4, 3 and 1) and as I was nervous I said some pretty dumb things for instance. In choice 2 the only dumb thing I did was forget to mention that I intended doing a MA in medical education.

I can only be sure that Choice 2, didn’t check the ‘don’t employ this Doctor’ box. But it’s going to cost us about ten grand between us to move, and I’ll always wonder if I could have got my first choice.

Can I wake up and not be stuck in Kafkaesque nightmare please?