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February 18 Preparing for the real worldIt was tough to get back to work after 9days of messing around in 4x4s and on beaches, but just as Murphy would have predicted, the weather improved the minute we stepped back into the Hospital. For the last 4weeks, it has been exactly as requested -35degrees, not too humid, brilliant sunshine, no storms. Not to mention perfect waves for the majority. It wasn't long before we had another week off, based around the arrival of Lucy and Paul from UK. They were here to see us and Paul's friend Dave who lives up near Brisbane - a career Emergency Doc who has decided to stay. We met them in Surfer's Paradise and went to a horrendous bar in the middle of the city that surpassed even Guy's Hospital bar for the stench of vomit. We made a hasty exit the next morning and found ourselves, inexorably, in Byron Bay again. Once more into the brig. And Fraser's clutches. You've read it all before - Balcony Bar, nice meals, cocktails, time on beach and surfing etc etc. A couple of inevitable experiences later and we found ourselves standing on the top of a great big hill with a large sheet of nylon attached to our backs at the end of about 100little nylon cords. For some reason, jumping off the hill suspended from these nylon cords seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Fraser, it must be said, had some difficulty getting airborne. He crashed twice on take off. Lou and I took off smoothly first time. (Fraser will insist I mention that Lou and I were strapped to instructors, while he was only strapped to his underpants) Most importantly about the whole weekend, was the aquisition of my new board. It had been a long time in the conception and a little while in the rebirth, after the first attempt appeared in Coffs with the wrong paint work and a big dent in the bottom. Dave Parkes (the same guy that made Louisa's board) crafted mine and it looked awesome. I'm sure psychology had something to do with it, but my attempts / success ratio as definitely shot up. Lucy, Paul, Lou and I returned to Coffs for a few days of relaxing after Fraser-time at our home in Sawtell and had a very nice time. Sadly, it wasn't until sunset on the fourth day that Luce and Paul even got to see the beach outside our house. MMC has taken over the world as we know it and job applications are now more convoluted than my average blog entry. For those of ou who dont know about MMC (modernising medical careers), it involves the following: 1. all jobs to be advertised at the same time on a national database. Actually quite a good improvement. 2. applications no longer involve sending a CV to the relevant employer - a central organisation arranges wishy-washy application papers with daft questions to assess our suitability for the post. A non-medical person marks the application papers. Pure genius. 3. Doctors are only allowed to apply for 4 jobs and these are geographically limited - I can apply for 4 jobs in one county, or I can apply for 1 job in four counties. Nothing in between. Splendid, especially if you're married to another doctor. 4. all docs to have an expiry date - if you don't progress in a certain time-limit, you can bugger off and be a stockbroker ( I think this means no more sodding off to Australia. Unless, of course, you really want that large January bonus and Aston-Martin on the driveway). Tempting. 5. interviews for each speciality to all be carried out at the same day. This one's priceless - Who the hell is going to be looking after the patients on February 24th when all GP applicants have their selection exams? Who's going to look after the children when all Paed surgeons have their inreviews on 3rd April nationwide? The list of changes go on and on, with not much omprovement on the old system at all. The trouble with MMC is that they've forced it all upon us and, being doctors, we just go along with it as we always have. What other career in the world tells the applicant where they have to work? What other job application in the world is 'marked' by someone who has no idea what being a Cardio-thoracic surgeon involves? And who decided to herald an amazing new online-only system of applications? Very high tech indeed - it meant I could apply from Australia which was lovely, but amazingly, the application forms then get printed out and faxed to the markers! What's more, the national aplication form then gets marked by every 'county' that I've applied for jobs in. Surely the whole point of having nationwide applications is that if I qualify for interview in Guildford, I qualify for interview in Inverness? Oh well. So here we are, back in the UK, not knowing how many doctors will and won't get jobs (and astoundingly by the way, nor do the government) or whether we'll have employment in August or whether we'll be living in Bristol. Exciting times ahead. Its raining. I did check the Devon surf forecast for the next few days and wondered if I could justify buying a wet suit here, but my fertility is apparently valued slightly higher than my adoption suitability - which probably depends on my employmeny status - so if i'm unemployed I cant adopt because I'm unsuitable, and I cant surf because its too bloody cold. 51 days till we're back in Sawtell. With our surfboards. TrackbacksThe trackback URL for this entry is: http://mikeyandlouisa.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!81ED95541674597C!896.trak Weblogs that reference this entry
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