Sunday, November 29, 2015

Doctors' unhappiness

As I tweeted, 'Junior doctors are not happy'. David Hunter usefully sets the dispute over the junior doctor contract and the likely strike action in the wider political context (see BMJ editorial). When doctors were happy, they:-
sacrificed early evenings, studied hard, saw patients, and provided “good” care. In return for these sacrifices doctors got reasonable remuneration; reasonable work-life balance later; autonomy; job security; deference; and respect. 
The drive for greater accountability over recent years has not always been well implemented (eg. see previous post). Care did need to change to be more patient-centred rather than doctor-centred (eg. see previous post). But practice has become too fragmented and dysfunctional. As Hunter concludes:-
resolving the concerns [of unhappy doctors] remains as big a challenge now as [15 years ago], regardless of the immediate outcome of the present dispute.

Monday, November 02, 2015

A sunny ferry trip

Now waiting to sail from Hook of Holland because of fog disruption yesterday to flight to Norwich (see EDP article). At least The Scotsman reports a problem (see article). Could be why I was redirected via Edinburgh tomorrow. I couldn't spend another night on a make-up bed in Schiphol in M terminal, but it's actually very warm and sunny on the ferry! Sailing now.