BMA Press Office
For Immediate Release
BMA Launches Sexy Doc Show
London, UK February 2010 – Britain’s leading medical association has launched a new TV series starring sexy young docs in a bid to boost trainee numbers.
Modelled on the recent BBC drama Desperate Romantics, the six part Desperate Doctors portrays junior doctor training to be a racy romp through the wards and clinics – far cry from the dull round of failed job applications and endless assessments depicted by many of today’s junior doctors.
Officials at the British Medical Association have been spurned into action by plummeting trainee numbers. The imminent arrival of medical revalidation – said by the Association to threaten the careers of as many as one in seven practicing doctors – have heightened fears that within five years there will be a severe shortage of medics available to run the NHS.
The BMA hopes that depicting junior training as a fun filled, drug-fuelled, sex-crazed orgy will re-ignite jaded doctors’ interest in a medical career.
BMA Chair Dr Sir Shandy Mascara said: “Back in my day, being a junior doctor was fun. What we are trying to show with our new doc-u-drama Desperate Doctors is that it can still be fun.”
ends
Notes to editors
1. There has been a severe reduction in recent years in the number of applicants to medical training programs in the UK. The crisis deepened last November, following the introduction of the EWTD. General Practice has been particularly badly hit, with a 33% slump in applications.
2. Medical revalidation pilots are getting underway this year, with full roll-out expected next year. Early indications are that between 5% and 14% of all GPs will fail at least one element of revalidation, with some having to do up to 18 months of ‘corrective training’.