If your friend was in the SpR/StR (surgery may also involve CST) grade then, subject to completion of examinations and (I think) the Royal Colleges of Surgeons Intercollegiate examinations then she would have progressed to the GMC Specialist Register and eligibility for consultant appointment.

If she was in the NCCG (now Specialty Doctor) grade then she has, since 2005 had the opportunity to work towards an application to the PMETB under Article 14 of the General and Specialist Medical Practice Order for entry to the Specialist Register. It is no longer solely about access to the training posts.

Possibly (depending on when she was in the NHS) she may have been ’stuck’ in the old SHO grade. Certainly surgical posts were and still are very competitive but where does the racism come in? Presumably she complained if she felt she was being held back by racism?

The US Board of Surgery residency examination (and any US Board fellowships post-credentialling) could be used to an Article 14 application, though it is not a guarantee of success in itself. I would be interested to know exactly how this person was advised and by whom.

Of course the US Attendings tend to earn substantially more in the US than in the UK.

I notice anytime i comment you are very quick to pounce on me .
What the hell is your problem? I wasn’t stating stats just my experiences.
I may not be a Doctor but i do work in the medical field.

AS i mentioned my friend who was a surgeon in the UK within the NHS has relayed her experiences to me and is now moved from the UK to the US precisely due to the fact she could not move up the ‘chain’ to be a consultant. She DID face rascism and maybe things have changed for women since she practised so that’s great.

I appreciate you’re in the field and have more insight but calm down please.

ironically you know things are changing when you see second generation Britiah trained Asian Doctors berating european patients for not learning the language!

Do any doctors support the BMA?

Many countries appear to give young doctors a view that specialty training opportunities in the UK are plentiful and encourage doctors to chance their arm in the UK. This is rash and is a view 30 years out of date.

The NHS has a poor record when it comes to being fully open with immigrant doctors, but a reasonable part of the blame lies overseas too.

The abolition of permit free training for doctors was implemented in a very, very, very cack handed way. This was (to my mind) largely due to it being the Home Office who little about postgraduate medical education structures that came up with the scheme and its implementation. It was almost certainly rushed and lead to significant numbers falling through cracks, or rather gaping holes.

There is an oversupply of doctors, many of whom can not find specialty training posts and a work permit arrangement was, in part, a response to this new reality. When PFT was introduced in the mid 1980s there was a need to increase the supply of doctors.

My view is that work permit/immigration arrangements are not the best way to regulate supply of doctors however other professions do not have a permit free arrangement and I see no reason why medicine should intrinsically be different.

Of course, every doctor that comes here and is left languishing is at a cost to their native country, not to mention the often heavy personal cost.

The introduction of work permits showed significant failures in NHS workfprce planning and data collection and a Home Office with a wildly simplistic world view but it is a stretch to suggest that it was all a racist conspiracy.

And what about the attitude shown to immigrant doctors, who nearly were chucked out?

My local is an Irish watering hole. Believe you me – they are still whinging about it!

I like your attitude – shut up and put up with our racism………real cool.

What a complete load of tosh. The UK has more ‘ethnic minority’ doctors in positions of seniority than any other Western country. I have never experienced any racism, but of course it does exist the way it does in all walks of life. Some of the most pre-eminent doctors in the UK are immigrants. The three best-selling medical textbooks have Indian editors and authors, including a woman. Several directors of the largest transplant centres in the UK are from Asia. Many of the most pioneering research and clinical doctors in the UK are not white. Women are under-represented in consultant posts, but vastly over-represented in new GP appointments. One can’t use that ratio to say women are discriminated against – they’re choosing to become GPs.

As I recall DR1001, you are not a doctor, so I understand why you’re so wrong.

Medicine has had a paradigm shift from the old boys white network it undoubtedly was, to a system which screws everyone over, irrespective of race (i.e. an electronic job system which seems to randomly allocate people jobs).

The reality on the ground in the NHS is there are many problems and racism is far far down the list. This does not mean it should be ignored, there are some very worrying statistics like more complaints, harsher punishments etc for non-white doctors. However Liam Donaldson and the BMA are about as far removed from doctors’ views as one can get. They do not represent British doctors.

I am only speaking for doctors in the NHS, I can’t comment about other professionals who might have things worse.

Do what the Irish did, stop whinging and get on with it.

Er so those that suffer racism should stop complaining and go blow people up?

Do what the Irish did, stop whinging and get on with it.

Certainly from close friends in the field it seems it’s almost impossible if you’re a woman and or minority to move up the echelons in medicine in the UK whereas the individual im thinking of is doing very very well in the US.

Maybe Rohin, our resident doc, can shed more light on this…