Since the General Medical Council hopped into bed with the Department of Health earlier this year, we have seen surprisingly little in the way of overt matrimonial activity. It does appear, however, that there has much foreplay going on under the duvet, and the happy couple are moving ever nearer to that orgy of wanton destruction that will soon be on us – the orgy of enhanced professional regulation for doctors.
As with any orgy, there will be many players involved. The ones wearing the jackboots, the ones who will marshal their network of leather coated spies and informers, will not of course be known as Nazis, but will instead be responsibly renamed as Responsible Officers.
The Herr Responsible Officers will be drawn from those known to be sympathetic to Reich. Early verk by the Department has suggested zhat ze most fertile ground for recruiting ze Herr Officers is from the ranks of Trust Medical Directors, a cadre of doctors already known for both their loyalty to the Reich, and their zeal for shafting colleagues.
Ze natural sympathy of ze Herr Responsible Officers vor ze Reich vill mean zhat minimal training vill be required to fulfil zair neue roles. Central Command have ordered that one or perhaps two days will be sufficient; and that the first Herr Officers will be in post within twelve months.
Research seen by Central Command suggests that the climate of fear generated by the high visibility of the Herr Responsible Officers will motivate the rank and file to follow orders at all times; jobbing doctors foolish enough to step out of line will be rapidly brought to the attention of their local Herr Responsible Officers for further investigation and treatment.
Those found guilty of crimes against the Reich vill be punished by the Herr Responsible Officers. Building on the ASBO concept, the Herr Officers will have powers to administer summary justice, by issuing APBOs – Anti Professional Behaviour Orders.
APBO scumbags vill be marked viz armbands, and ze Restrikterung Ordnung placed on their practices. Those guilty of ze more henious crimes against ze Reich vill be ordered to attend ze Remediation Camps, vitch vill be established for the purpose of retraining zese deviant doctors to ze Reich standards.
Those guilty of the most severe crimes will be transported to Headquarters in either London and Manchester for summary trial – a process which has been facilitated by lowering of the standard of proof from criminal to civil – with a normal expectation of erasure on conviction.
Provisional calculations suggest that as many as one in twenty doctors will be caught in the Herr Responsible Officers’ nets. Truly an orgy of wanton professional destruction. And yet, apart from the Nazi overlay, none of this is made up. Jobbing doctors who want to ruin their day – or should that be fear for their career – need look no further than here.
All very depressing although watching the creep develop gradually over the years has been a fascinating phenomenon.
Revalidation has very little to do with patient care. It is more about control and the castration and division of a profession whose independence and willfulness has always irked government.
A prediction: Most doctors over fifty already will have worked out their finances in order to calculate the earliest date they can retire. Many of the under fifties will have their Plan B (the escape route) ready to be brought into play when the time is right. Some of those who remain, the ones who are not the obedient servants of the state, will take the piss out of revalidation in the most imaginative of ways. Young people will still enter medicine bright eyed an bushy tailed but will eventually become disenfranchised, go abroad to practice, or be wooed out of medicine. A medical degree will always be used as a measure of potential capability in many fields.
Eventually the time will come where there is a serious shortage of doctors. The dumbing down brought about by a narrow system of guidelines, protocols and competencies will be found wanting. Those doctors that are left eg the Responsible Officers and their band of obedient helpers will be so far removed from patient care that they will be at best useless or at worst dangerous.
It is then the patients will rebel, governments will panic and the law of supply and demand will prevail.
Doctors will be wooed, exceptions to the rules will be made, and insidiously, restrictions will be lifted. Revalidation will wither and take on a simpler, cheaper, and more flexible form based on trust.
It will take some time though.
The Witch Doctor is in the habit of advising all young doctors and those planning to enter medicine, to develop their Plan B as early as possible and put it into effect when they realise that life is far too short to be kicked around until they are senseless.
They can then patiently wait for the call to come back, when medicine once more becomes a profession.
Witch Doctor – You have covered many of the points I have been saving for later posts! But don’t worry – I will still come back to them.
One thing I nearly put in the post, but didn’t – this post isn’t about revalidation (if you look, you will see the word isn’t mentioned once). It’s about the other 59 months in between a doctor’s “revalidation events”…
Gracious me, neither it is! I’m right off track! It’s all about Responsible Officers.
The Witch Doctor seems to suffer from a bizarre association of ideas.
…maybe you are right …maybe there is – an intertwinglement!