Second Round Of Junior Doctor Job Applications Being Rendered Meaningless, Warns BMA, UK

Main Category: Medical Students / Training
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 03 Jul 2007 - 1:00 PDT

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Junior doctors who have not found a job through the disastrous Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) are being forced to go through the same discredited process again, the BMA warns.

A second round of job applications is now underway. The outgoing Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, said it would be "based on a revised short-listing and interview process, which will include a structured CV".

However, in many areas, doctors going through the second round are being forced to answer exactly the same "creative writing" questions they did in the first, and in some, there is no option to submit a CV.

Dr Jo Hilborne, chairman of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee, adds:

"No-one could conceivably have any confidence in the original form, which has failed many excellent doctors already. To see it appearing again, unchanged, in the second round is adding insult to injury."

It is also emerging that in many areas, the deadlines for applying to posts in the second round expired before the first was over. Candidates were not notified of this, and therefore had no reason to look for jobs until it was too late. The BMA Junior Doctors Committee has written to the Council of Postgraduate Medical Deans - the regional bodies that oversee doctors' training.

Letter follows:

Dear Professor Paice,

Following informal discussions between the BMA and COPMeD, I would like to detail further our pressing concerns about the way Round 2 is being conducted.

You will be aware that the end of Round 1 was Friday 22 June; we were appalled to see deaneries advertising Round 2 posts prior to this date without emailing MTAS applicants to notify them. It was also very disappointing to see that many posts had application deadlines that were before the end of Round 1. As candidates were not notified of these adverts many were disadvantaged, as they would not have had any reason to search for posts before the end of Round 1, believing that the official start of Round 2 would follow this. It would be entirely possible for Deaneries to email candidates who applied to their region to notify them of the various start dates of applications for Round 2 on a rolling basis, and I would urge you to consider doing this. Candidates will welcome more information on the process they are going through.

We have also had many reports of people going through the application process for Round 2 and finding it to be very similar, if not identical, to Round 1 in terms of the white space questions asked and the shortlisting process followed. In the review group discussions it was clear that a robust, CV based process should be used in round 2. To see these forms being used again, unchanged, is infuriating.

It was anticipated that applicants would have the opportunity to discover their ranking within a deanery and receive careers guidance by way of a meeting, before applying to Round 2. This opportunity has clearly been taken away from them. Some trainees have encountered difficulties in accessing their ranking information, and I would be grateful for reinforcement from you, or others, of the necessity for this to be made available. Careers guidance remains an extremely difficult issue which I have discussed with Derek Gallen and others and I am happy to discuss this further with you, but time is not on our side.

Lastly, we hope that COPMeD will now be instrumental in implementing not only a robust appeals process to be accessed prior to the end of Round 2 but also an immediate facilitation of inter deanery transfers as previously discussed.

Trainees understand this has been a difficult time for Deaneries, but with decisions which influence their future careers being taken now and often with little time available for debate, it is essential that their needs are at the heart of all decisions. I hope that COPMeD would agree with this and be as accommodating as possible to the needs of trainees at this difficult time.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Tom Dolphin
Chair, Education and Training Committee
JDC

For more information on MTAS go to here.

http://www.bma.org.uk

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