The half life of waiting for Offers.

I’m currently waiting to here if I’ve got a job or not. The jobs are e mailed to us. First they will e mail their first choices, then if they turn it down then they will e mail the second choices. This reduces us MTAS fodder to a strange sort of half life.

Of course we don’t have jobs where we can be permanently connected to our email thank god. So the question is how often do you check? The tempation is to click on ‘refresh’ continously, but that isn’t possible. No E Mails? What does that mean? Does it mean ‘no jobs released yet’ or ‘we’ve offered the jobs but not to you’.

I have decided that I can only check my e mail every time I check the blood results. When I’m covering the ward this is twice a day, when I’m admitting patients I check blood results every hour or so.

With each click on F5 hope seeps away slightly more.

Every so often there are rumours, either on Remedy forum or Doctors.net, or in real life that someone has heard, and then you give up hope.

Anyway, I like to think that only one of my 4 choices have made offers so far, not to me. But I don’t know, it might be that none of them want me. I think this is probably true.

One by one some of my friends are escaping from MTAS hell and into the promised land of ‘Job Secruity’, and I start to feel I’m the only one left in MTAS hell.

Of course I’ve decided I didn’t want any of their stickin’ training anyway, and that I was out of this hemisphere, so it’s all academic. But it would be nice to stay, not to mention financially convinent, due to a sticky matter of a 100% mortgage, not much equity and a fixed rate expiring at just the wrong time

Would the ‘increasing number of transsexuals who regret surgery’ please stand up

Well it seems that the text of the GMC judgement isn’t fully available on their website so all we’ve got to go on is the incredably biased information that the Guardian chooses to make available to us. Once I’ve got the full text from the GMC website I’ll tell you about the actual verdict. In the mean time read this article and feel disgusted with the Guardian. If you read this article you would think that hundreds of Transsexuals were regretting there decision, an ‘increasing number’ even.

I’m sorry but where is the evidence that an ‘increasing number’ of transsexuals regret surgery? Every single article I read seems to just state the same three or four cases. Now I’m not saying that no one regrets their treatment. But an ‘increasing number’? None of these articles even mention a number at all. Just the same few tragic, yet strangly exhibitionist cases.

Frankly all it seems to me that the newspapers have got tired of printing stories saying ‘My shocking sex swap story’ and started printing ‘Shock Horror – now I regret my Sex Swap op’.

But these are people’s lives, and really most people don’t regret it. The vast majority don’t ever regret it. Now I’m not saying ‘go ahead and don’t think about it’ but most people who change sex have thought about it very carefully and find that things are better afterwards.

No one has done any proper studies that state how many patients do regret it – now this would be a useful study.
By the way in more important things I’m currenlty planning my last holiday in the UK a fairwell tour of Scotland, Patsy Hewitt is an idiot as usual and I’m preparing a bitter resignation letter for the BMA. Frankly I’ve got bored of being a transsexual blogger I think I’ll start a new blog soon. ‘Travels with my Littman Cardiology’

How I gave up on the UK

It wasn’t meant to end like this – I didn’t really want to go abroad. When I qualified I was a Believer in the NHS. I believed it worked, I believed it was the system I wanted to work in. I thought there was job security. My IFA said I’d never be unemployed and advised me to take on a large mortgage. Everyone said that there would be plenty of jobs.

Looking back I should have seen in advance – when I was a third year, our first year in clinical medicine, it was obvious there were far too many students. Any patient with any signs had been seen by numerous students. At first you would think that this was only because we were all concentrated in teaching hospitals – but no – the Medical School had turned nearly every District General Hospital in the area into a Teaching Hospital.

I had four interviews – for a brief period of time it looked like I might stand a chance of winning the MTAS Lottery. The Scottish one was by far the best. I have been keeping this fact from my blog because I didn’t really want to let slip which area of the UK I was working in.

The more I think about it, the less I want one of these new training numbers. They won’t turn me into what I want to be – a good generalist with a specialisation, it will turn me into a specialist who knows everything about nothing. Now as much as it would be nice to have a job for five years who on earth would want to employ one of these new Doctors once I had a new shiny CCT* holders over and above someone who trained abroad and had actually got some experience.

This isn’t about creating excellence – just about creating another cog in the wheel. But who’s going to change the direction of the wheel? Or doesn’t that matter any more – as long as they’re seen within 4 hours.
As annoying as it is to face a Consultant saying ‘ Of course in my day when I was your age I could insert a chest drain in five minutes using only my teeth and a knitting needle’ These guys do have a point – in those days it was a case of learning by doing – and just getting on with basic doctoring, whilst you picked up the extra skills. If there’s one thing I will gain the Southern Hemisphere it’s Sunstroke oh and experience of medicine.
Anyway Scotland finally made their offers to their first choice candidates for Core Medical Training on Monday. But there’s somewhere out there that wants me – the hospital in the Southern Hemisphere. If I get an offer from the Uk within the next couple of weeks I might pull out of the Southern Hemisphere.

I used to feel I had a duty to the NHS – I don’t any more – there are enough doctors to go around. If there is a shortage next year because of the fact that I’m not the only one who can’t wait for the outcome of the Application nightmare then it isn’t my problem.

I’m still going to put the house on the market. I’m going to apply for a visa and book a flight. Some of my friends are going over on holiday when I’m going over there, which will help. I’ve told my driving instructor who has agreed to book a test but agreed that I probably won’t pass it before I go, but if I’m emigrating anyway I might as well have a go.

I’ve sent a fax saying I’m going to go. I’m starting to get exicited about the new challenge, and worry about homesickness.

*CCT = Certificate of completion of training.

I’ve been tagged – 8 random things about me!

Junior Docspot had tagged me – I’m very pleased, it’s always good to find that people read you. The game goes like this – you post 8 random things about yourself and tag 8 fellow bloggers to reveal 8 random things about themselves

So now – 8 random things about me:

1. I have a pet python called Fluff
2. I occasionally get broody, which worries me as I wonder if it makes me less of a man. I was very relieved when one of my soon-to-be-married male friends said he was looking forward to having children.
3. I am tone deaf and can only hear 3 notes ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low. My appreciation of classical music is somewhat impaired by this.
4. I have a BMI of 38 and would probably have gastric banding if I could afford it.
5. I used to be in the Socialist Workers Party but have let my membership lapse as I don’t think anyone wants a revolution apart from me.
6. I can’t drive a car (yet) but am having lessons.
7. I didn’t leave the UK until I was 18 years old. Part of the reason to emigrate is that I was the only child at school who never went on holiday, this is proving to myself that I can now choose to go abroad.
8. I secretly wish I was working more hours, under the ‘old’ system.

And I’m tagging – The Singing Librarian, Teuchter, Aphra Behn, Dr Ed, Boy Revealed, Reed, and Solnushka

Rejoice – MTAS is dead – so now what?

As I emerged blearily eyed from failing my Part 1 I turned on the news. It turned out that the MTAS system was no longer being used. I’m delighted, it was unfair and inflexible, and treated people, like surplus wastes of space.

So now what? I wait, I check my e mail, I wait, I check my e mail again. Scotland pulled out of MTAS several weeks ago and instigated their contingency plan. England don’t seem to have a contingancy plan.

You might think that had I not been sitting my part 1 at the time I would have been informed of the sad demise of MTAS and the plans for using a new system by some responsible person from the local deanary. Perhaps there was an e mail sent to all applicants – in the way the Scottish Deanaries sent e mails to all applicants.

No – at our F2 teaching this week we discussed how we found out about the future of the application system. I thought perhaps my e mail had got lost ontheMRCP Part 1 mire – no.

How did we all find out about it – Channel 4 news? They hadn’t even got it together enough to send out an e mail.

The entire thing is hitting the buffers with a satisfying thunk Remedy are doing stirling work in opposing the system in the judical review.

It is still all horribly uncertain. I want MTAS to be dead – but I also want to know what the hell is going on with my life.

Would someone please tell me if I have a job or don’t have a job?

I would be worked up about it – but I’ve long given up hope on this UK this September. Today I received a job offer – from a country south of the equator. But if I’m going to emigrate then I need to rent out my house and find my cat another willing slave to feed and worship him. I need to cover up the ghastly yellow in my back bedroom and fit another front door handle. I also need toreneogtiate my loan rates, as of course the Southern Hemisphere currently isn’t enough to pay of my student loans in stirling.

Would you just please tell me? My Cat is very nervous.

Well actually he doesn’t have a clue, but every time I look at him I feel bad about possibly having to rehome him.

I conducted a straw poll of the F2s at my hospital – every single SHO and F2 who was hoping to work in hospital medicine had received a job offer from somewhere South of the Equator. There are too many doctors, no one feels we’re needed in the UK any more. We’re off – we can’t spend that long waiting to see if the Northern Hemisphere wants us.

My Second Attempt at the MRCP Part 1

It was a glorious sunny day when I sat the MRCP Part 1 for the second time. Exam weather. The first time I sat it I was so keen. I put all the effort needed into revision. Then when I failed by 2.5% I applied for the second attempt by return of post.

But by the time the second part came down I was worn down by MTAS, I had a job offer from the Sourthern Hemisphere and I wasn’t altogether sure if I was going to stay in the NHS long term. I just couldn’t motivate myself to revise. The exam was totally pointless – I still hadn’t heard about whether or not I’d got anything out of the 4 interviews I’d had. If I didn’t have a job there would be no point having the exam.

I almost didn’t sit it – I rang up the exam office and found out that ‘being pissed off with the NHS’wasn’t a good enough reason to pull out and get the money back. They helpfully suggested that I could just ‘not turn up’ and I could resit it as many times as I wanted. Still I did some revision, not as much as I wanted but enough to make me feel I’d given it a shot.

I was terrified of failing – I just didn’t want to be the sort of person who failed the Part 1 twice, it would make me a failure, a wanabee Physician. I didn’t want to be that sort of person. I’ve always had a bit of an inferiority complex – changing sex in medical school was a bit of a distraction from work so my grades weren’t always as high as they should be. I didn’t get honours, I didn’t win any prizes, all in all I was just average. Passing my Part 1 as soon as I could was going to be my way of proving I was just as good as the people who got honours. If I failed again I worried I would just give medicine. I took it though – partly because Ifaincied a day off work – I was feeling a bit stressed and sitting an exam was a break, and partly because once I started revision I worked really hard. I gave up a lot of things to study, so it would be galling to have given up them for nothing.

There were a lot fewer people this time – about half the candidates there were before – and a lot fewer of them had Non-UK passports.

The paper was about the same as the time before. It was actually better than I expected it to be. I don’t think I did well enough to pass – and if I’d started studying properly earlier I would have done a lot better.

I’m quite looking forward to getting the result. I’m expecting to fail – but it would be a pleasent surprise to have scraped through by a couple of marks.

Can I have some darn certainity please?

Being raised by hippies who believe that ‘whatever will be will be’ and ‘don’t worry, if we meditate there will be a way to pay the mortgage’ gives you a strange hatred of uncertainty. Unlike my parents I am a great believer in taking my life into my own hands, if I need money I work for it, if I have no job I go and look for one. I still remember the first week I spent looking for casual vacation work in my first university vacation. I had neatly typed up 20 copies of my CV and distributed 14 of them to various places in the City Centre to my surprise I was offered 5 jobs. Bar work, office work, nothing glamorous. But it was the first time I realised I could support myself without needing anyone else.

I also have an almost naive belief in making plans. I have always believed that I will never achieve anything unless I plan it properly, and if I don’t plan anything I will end up like my parents – living from dole cheque to dole cheque. Now I know several people who have not planned anything and ended up as well paid investment bankers or History Teachers, but I don’t believe that would happen to me. They had parents who had pointed them towards those jobs. My parents want me to come home and sign on whilst pursuing my artistic talents.

Now my interviews are over I can’t take my life in my own hands, all I can do is sit around and wait for fate. This is really frustrating. I want to make plans. (As we’ve seen I like making plans). But it’s quite difficult. There are several options.

1. A job locally This will mean everyone can basically continue in the way that they do now. This is good.
2. A job elsewhere in the UK. This will be rather fun, but I will have to either sell my house or rent it out, and then find somewhere else to buy or rent. Oh and then make some new friends.
3. A job in the Southern Hemisphere. Again rather fun, but I will have to sell or rent out the house and then live in hospital accomodation and then rehome my cat.

It’s amazing the sort of things I can’t do until I know what I’m doing with my life.

• Get a new mobile phone. I wish to buy a new mobile phone, but I don’t know if I’ll be in the UK for 12 months, so I can’t decide whether to get a contract.
• Do I renew the membership of the swimming pool locally when I don’t know if I’ll be moving or not?
• Spending any spare money. I have just about saved up enough for an air fare to another hemisphere, but if I don’t move I could buy quite a few things, or even pay off some debts.
• Should I put my house on the market? – I know it can take ages to sell a house. I could always pull out of a deal if I get a job locally.
• What about a car – I’m learning to drive, but don’t have a car to practice in. If I buy one I could learn more quickly.

I know this is a small whinge compared to some people, after all my cat doesn’t need a new school if we move, my pet python doesn’t need a new job, but it’s getting quite annoying not knowing where my life is going. If I am one of the unlucky 3000 then I need to know so I can make alternative arrangement.

They say we’ll know by the 8th of June – that doesn’t give us long to work out where we’re going next.

Breakdown cured by a crisis.

I’ve not had a good week. My revision isn’t going too well, ok it is, but I know failure is an option. I messed up the interview for Southern Hemisphere, and they still haven’t told me. The other EAU SHOs Kay and Sandra have both got offers for training in GP. I want a job too. I feel left out.

I also feel unwanted. I’ve found it a bit difficult to concentrate, it’s taken me ages to do a anything at all, I feel like my brain’s slowed down. I didn’t have much to do on Thursday – well I had a reasonable days workload. But it took forever. I got stuck in a cycle of despair.   

Don’t have job -> am useless doctor -> do work slowly -> I really am useless Doctor -> don’t deserve a job. On Thursday evening I was starting to seriously wonder if I was on the verge of a breakdown. I felt dead inside, as if my heart had been replaced by a necrotic abscess.

I got to work on Friday

 - Early because there was some stuff from my low workload I hadn’t got around to do, to find there was no Senior House Officer on call because they’d called in ‘sick’. (HUMMM) to make it worse there was no House Officer either also ‘sick’,  and Sandra was on annual leave.

So instead of five doctors seeing the new admissions there was two – and Kay went off to see out inpatients. That left me, taking GP calls and A and E referrals and seeing all the patients. It was a busy take – well it was busy for our hospital. There’s something exhilarating about coordinating a busy take and about using the skills you’ve been trained for.

 And you know what – it was great. I coped, I didn’t fall apart, as the boss put it ‘We’ve kept one step ahead of the crisis all day’. The boss was great too – he held the house officer bleep for an hour after Kay had left whilst the Locum House Officer was on her way in. He even went to the wards to write a discharge summary, and put in a couple of cannulas!.

Reasons I feel depressed

1. I’m going to fail my  MRCP Part 1
2. I don’t have a job.
3. I think I messed up a telephone interview for which I am the only applicant.

Gosh that’s only two reasons, but I feel a bit low at the moment. I really must revise and write more angry ranty sort of blogs.

Interview tomorrow.

Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to be interviewed for a job for which you are the only applicant?

When I applied to work in the Southern Hemisphere I was informed that a certain hospital, having seen my CV were very keen to employ me, and it was strongly hinted that I was the only applicant. There needed to be a telephone interview once they had my references but I was told that this was a formality. I promptly told everyone that I ‘had a job in the Southern Hemisphere’.

Now I’m consumed with fear – what if they don’t want me? How humiliating will that be?

What if I botch it up? What if it comes out that I don’t really want to go?

Just to recap – here are my reasons to go:

1. Experience. Since the European Working Time Directive the number of hours juniors spend in training has been much reduced. Some extra time in training will make me a better Doctor. I don’t want any of the ‘older generation’ to say to me ‘you young things don’t have any experience, when I was your age I could cure diphtheria single handed’.
2. Training in things you can’t get in the Uk. You don’t get much malaria in Middlesborough.
3. Becoming a Generalist MMC is all about producing specialists, well I want to be a good generalist before I can become a specialist.
4. Helping people. I’m informed that this particular Southern Hemisphere country really needs doctors, if we are to believe the DoH we have all the Doctors we need.
5. Nice mountains, nice sea, good hiking, good gliding.
6. Adventure. Most medical students went abroad on an elective. I couldn’t afford to, so went to Scotland. I never went abroad as a child, and have never been further south than Spain. I feel under travelled, and I have an itch to see the world.

And here are my reasons to stay

1. My Cat He’s a bit of a one person cat, and likes sitting on my lap and purring.
2. My House.
3. My Girlfriend. This bit’s private.
4. My Friends. Yes most of them are going to the Southern Hemisphere as well – but not all to the same place