I don't want my children to go into medicine

*Posted by Tim on behalf of Dr Crippen*

As an experienced father of four teenagers I no longer enter into the “will you tidy your bedroom” conversation. I never win.  Experienced parents know that the key to managing teenagers is not about winning the battles. It is about choosing which battles to fight. I look with amazement at the current battles that the government is fighting. It is a rare day now not to hear Jacqui Smith, our increasingly beleaguered home secretary, defending the extraordinary decision to cut the police pay rise from 2.5% to 1.9%.  And, if you are half asleep listening to the Today programme, doesn’t she sound like Harriet Harman? One of those is quite enough.

Alan Johnson meanwhile is on a collision course with the BMA about three hours extra work a week for GPs. Whatever the problems may be with “modern General Practice” (I feel an oxymoron coming on) an additional three hours will solve none of them. In any case, the BMA is not complaining about the extra time, it is complaining about the centralised micromanaging approach that tells doctors how the time is to be worked.

The strings are being pulled from Number 10. Tony Blair had outstanding “people skills” and would not have been fighting either of these battles. The police are marching. GPs are threatening to strike. Morale throughout the NHS continues to slip-slide away. I am relieved that none of my four children is going into medicine. I should not feel like that.

Luke Solon is a newly qualified doctor who wrote this week to NHS BLOG DOCTOR explaining why he is giving up medicine. Since making the decision, Luke says:

"...for the first time in a while I am optimistic about the future. I'm on nights at the moment, being ordered around by "Outreach Nurses" and hassled by A&E to meet their 4 hour targets." (full letter here)

Luke Solon is not alone. Many other young doctors are leaving medicine or leaving the country. Something is wrong. It is not about money. It is about principles. Doctors are a pretty cynical lot, but even we were flabbergasted to hear that, since leaving the DoH, Patricia Hewitt has taken a job advising a private equity company that has interests in buying up hospitals. (See “Where are they now?”)

What does that say for her commitment to the NHS?