The RCPG says that extended training for four years is a gift to the next generation of doctors.
Professor Candid, who runs the department of Gifts and Prezzies at Axminster University, says: ‘Like f*ck this is a gift. GP registrars get a bum deal anyway, they get paid peanuts and they’re either given jobs in dead end hospital specialties that nobody wants, in places where the most exciting thing that can happen to you is being diagnosed with a brain haemorrhage. That or they get shafted by less scrupulous partners in the name of “training”. Have you heard of those Greek fellas who gave that Trojan lot a great big wooden horse? It’s a bit like that, but less subtle.’
In Glasgow, in a key note speech about the new training programme, Professor Gerada wore a team GB jacket and draped herself in a union jack. Presumably, this was to emphasise the warlike patriotic nature of her proposals, which would otherwise have gone unnoticed.
One conference member said: ‘I’d sunk my third whisky by then and was on my way to being blootered when this vision came onto the stage. The Scot in me wanted to kill it straight away but I couldn’t even move my legs by then.
‘She seemed to be saying cheap labour for all, which is almost like slavery, but if my muddled brain got it right we now have Queen and country on our side. I got quite emotional at one point, what with all that red white and blue mixed up with all that malt, and I tried to sing ‘Rule Britannia’ but the words wouldn’t come. So I just weed myself instead.’
‘When I sobered up I tried my best to concentrate on what she was saying and in fairness she did say a lot of good things, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her Union Jack tracksuit. Like they say, nationalism renders us blind to the unhappiness around us.’
Flag-waving and nationalism is a form of self deception. If our great leaders insist on wearing union jack pants rather than having a reasoned debate we may as well hang ourselves out with the bunting.
Dr Kevin Hinkley is a GP in Aberdeen.
