This is the third year that we have attended the National Prevocational Medical Education forum, alongside some 300 delegates from a variety of different interest groups.
Because this year I didn’t have the responsibility of speaking I felt it was easier to step back and think about why such a number of people meet around what is such a small time in the career of a doctor.
Prevocational training is largely defined as the post graduate (pre-specialty) years a doctor serves after completing medical school. In the olden days it was known as ‘internship’ and ‘residency’. Not a long time, and becoming shorter as the race is on for limited training places with the various colleges, and an abundance of keen doctors all vying for these places.
When I went through these years at the start of this decade, there were three main questions doctors often pondered whilst traversing what disappears in the blink of an eye:
1. Why did I decide to be a doctor?
2. Where’s the kudos?
3. How do I get into a training program?
And chatting to peers during the breaks today, it appeared that these questions are as relevant as ever.
In no way am I minimising the importance and value of this forum, certainly not, but I feel that the issues raised and the discussion generated is as equally applicable to medical students and especially registrars, who could be starting their college training as early as in their PGY2 year. These concepts include leadership, doctor’s health and wellbeing, and the tenuous balance between education and service provision. It would be nice to see the audience widened to encompass these areas as well, notwithstanding the practicalities of this and the interfaces involved.
Because this year I didn’t have the responsibility of speaking I felt it was easier to step back and think about why such a number of people meet around what is such a small time in the career of a doctor.
Prevocational training is largely defined as the post graduate (pre-specialty) years a doctor serves after completing medical school. In the olden days it was known as ‘internship’ and ‘residency’. Not a long time, and becoming shorter as the race is on for limited training places with the various colleges, and an abundance of keen doctors all vying for these places.
When I went through these years at the start of this decade, there were three main questions doctors often pondered whilst traversing what disappears in the blink of an eye:
1. Why did I decide to be a doctor?
2. Where’s the kudos?
3. How do I get into a training program?
And chatting to peers during the breaks today, it appeared that these questions are as relevant as ever.
In no way am I minimising the importance and value of this forum, certainly not, but I feel that the issues raised and the discussion generated is as equally applicable to medical students and especially registrars, who could be starting their college training as early as in their PGY2 year. These concepts include leadership, doctor’s health and wellbeing, and the tenuous balance between education and service provision. It would be nice to see the audience widened to encompass these areas as well, notwithstanding the practicalities of this and the interfaces involved.
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