A little reflection is good for... the mirror

I'm glad there seems to be NCHD uproar at the moment. I just want to make a quick point about the future of medicine in this country. I graduated from the 1st graduate entry class: 50 students--30 from North America, 20 from Ireland, 1 from Oz.

With the exception of ONE North American, the rest have returned to the other side of the pond. Of the 20 Irish, one is permanently in Oz, one is permanently in NZ, one is permanently in Canada, one is soon to leave for the UK (and likely won't return), one was in the UK (is now back and likely to leave again), and one is recently back from NZ. The way I see it, more than two-thirds of the class is gone, more will leave when they have to do research or specialty fellowships to advance their careers (only some of whom will return as more will be poached for positions with better pay, better hours, better training, and better support).

When the consultants are the ones doing the work so NCHDs don't have to do call... where are all these consultants going to come from? Who is going to be providing all this care? Awfully ambitious to think that someone doing a fellowship where they have a work hour cap and fully functional support teams (like IV teams, phlebotomy, ANPs), and is employed to use their medical education to think and act as a doctor is going to come back and spend their Saturday putting in IVCs and recharting kardexs... How is this a good idea? How is this safer for patients? How is this going to keep the health care systems from needing doctors to work in violation of the EWTD?