Thread by @doctor_oxford

Dear UK public,

Yesterday, hot on the heels of widespread concern among doctors at the govt’s project of replacing NHS doctors with doctor substitutes, @gmcuk released a blog about its future intentions.

It left doctors like me reeling.

Here's why 🧵

gmcuk.wordpress.com/2024/03/12/dev…

@gmcuk First, a reminder of what the GMC is.

Founded 166 years ago, the GMC protects the public by maintaining a register of drs in the UK, controlling entry to the register & suspending or erasing members if necessary.

It sets standards for all UK doctors.

Weighty, vital stuff. 2/n

@gmcuk It’s raison d’être, in other words, is protecting you - the British public - by ensuring the highest standards of UK medicine.

So far so good.

I want a robust regulator as much as you do! I care deeply & seriously about keeping my patients safe.

But... 3/n

@gmcuk The GMC has also agreed to regulate the new replacement doctors - physician associates (PAs) - whose roll out is causing many doctors such concern

@DHSCgovuk, @gmcuk & @NHSEngland all insist PAs are not replacing doctors - yet that is exactly what is happening. 4/n

Such is the extent of this @DHSCgovuk's stealth cost-cutting project that PAs can now even be found on senior specialist registrar on-call rotas, & even in specialities such as haematology, whose inpatients are often the sickest in the hospital. 5/n

https://x.com/doctor_oxford/status/1769002209293848986?s=20

So concerned doctors read the blog from the GMC’s Director of Education and Standards, @drcolinm, with great interest.

It starts innocuously enough, arguing that medical education needs "transformation" to be fit for the 21st century. 6/n

@drcolinm But some of the changes proposed are eye popping.

Take this one.

Yes, this really is the Director of Education & Standards of the GMC no less seriously suggesting we can bin much of the content of UK medical schools because doctors can alway use their smartphones. 7/n

@drcolinm Now you don't need to be a doctor to understand the risks of using Dr Google to keep yourself safe & healthy.

Here's a visual representation of the dangers.

Suppose, in the GMC's new, dumbed down, med-school-lite, assorted rare & life-threatening conditions are omitted. 8/n

@drcolinm How does the doctor know what to Google, when they've never even been taught about condition X in the first place?

Or when they don't understand how condition Y might cause, say, coma or confusion, because that knowledge was deemed too old skool for today's digital docs? 9/n

@drcolinm It gets worse.

Not only is @gmcuk aiming to dumb down a UK medical school education, it is also proposing to dumb down doctors' post-graduation qualifications.

Fewer exams, fewer assessments.

But these are the very hurdles that ensure we are safe, excellent doctors. 10/n

@drcolinm @gmcuk My post-graduate membership exams were the toughest I've ever taken.

And I'm glad they were.

Because not only do I want to be an excellent NHS doctor, I want excellent NHS doctors treating me & my family.

Don't we all?

So what on earth is @gmcuk playing at? 11/n

@drcolinm @gmcuk The answer may lie in another recently-slipped out GMC document, which you can find here:



Look at the highlighted section.

The GMC's vision is for doctors' post-grad medical training to be watered down to a new level applicable to PAs as well. 12/n gmc-uk.org/education/stan…

@drcolinm @gmcuk But PAs are not doctors, have no medical degree & sometimes confuse the public by passing themselves off as doctors.

The GMC's solution?

Not increased clarity, but decreased standards.

Simply let doctors & PAs alike meet new, indistinguishable lower standards. 13/n

@drcolinm @gmcuk Now I know many PAs bring a superb range of skills to the NHS workplace. I thank them for all they do & hate that they are in the middle of all this.

But the 'solution' to the PA/doctor debacle cannot be to erode standards of medical education.

Not if safety matters.

14/n

@drcolinm @gmcuk I simply cannot believe I am in the position, as a GMC-registered practising doctor, of begging my regulator not to plough on with this reckless, knee-jerk, politically driven assault on standards of British medicine.

No doubt @gmcuk will take a dim view of this thread. 15/n

@drcolinm @gmcuk No doubt a quiet word, or worse, will be inbound.

But what kind of doctor am I, if too scared to take stand against this proposed assault on the current standards of rigour & excellence of UK medicine.

A feeble one, frankly.

And my patients mean more than that. ends/