It’s a matter of conjecture whether Stilton wants more complaints to the GMC. Last year, he was all for it. The GMC’s State of the Profession report for 2014, published on 8th October 2014, noted ‘regulators…are seeing a rise in complaints…much easier to raise a complaint. This is all to be welcomed…’. The ellipses cover many words but the meaning is unaltered. By 11th February 2015, only four months later, writing in BMJ Careers, he said ‘We do not “welcome” the huge increase in complaints’. It is not clear why “welcome” is in quotes but that aside the two positions seem rather at odds with each other. Perhaps they have the heating at GMC Towers set rather high, and Stilton is starting to overheat. Or maybe it’s complaint blowback, be careful what you ask for. Welcoming complaints, the GMC got more than it bargained for.
Month: February 2015
Yes We Can
The wonderfully uplifting and generally obstetrically sound BBC series Call the Midwife has got Dr No worried. Playing catch up on the current series, he worries about the way the plots are getting more extreme, as if the writers, lacking the discipline of Jennifer Worth’s now expended memoirs, have decided to go commando. We’ve already had outbreaks of diphtheria, syphilis and rats: will bubonic plague be next? Or will it be World War Three? Dr Turner is burning out and booze has crept up on Trixie: when will the sponge-o-cidal Sister Monica Joan’s magic mushroom habit be exposed? Is unflappable Sister Julienne unflappable because she smokes cheroots behind the bicycle shed? Having put her back in a nurse’s uniform, will Dr Turner’s wife Shelagh now be transformed, Dennis Potter style, into a Singing Receptionist, complete with leather crop and corset? Will Dr Turner’s stress trigger a bout of crippling psoriasis? Such are the possible alarming developments on which Dr No frets.
Making Ministers Happy
Just as forecasters talk of a ‘fog situation’ or a ‘snow event’, so do medical educators now talk of the ‘shape of training’. Why the accessory words are needed is beyond Dr No, but then again he is not all that surprised because the recent Shape of Training Review – hashtag ShoT or in this parish bashtag ROT – was led by a certain eminence situation, one Prof Sir David Greenaway, a distinguished looking egg-head and leading light from the science that makes astrology look good. The #ShoT review’s publication situation was treated by and large as a no news situation – maybe being #ShoT didn’t help – though for some reason the BBC did cover it, and of course our dear friend the Ferret Fancier has been poking holes in the review for some time. One of the Ferret Fancier’s notable achievements has been, on appeal, to get an order for the release of certain GMC minutes of #ShoT/DoH meetings, which the GMC had previously determined should most definitely remain as an ongoing non-situation.