Revalidation fails again

Regular readers here will be well aware with the contempt felt by DZ (in common with most doctors) for the process of appraisal and revalidation, and for the General Medical Council in their continued blind delusion that this process has some value in protecting the general public from underperforming or rogue practitioners.
There can be no better illustration of the futility of revalidation than the case of this man.

Mr Ian Paterson is exactly the sort of doctor that the GMC would have us believe that revalidation would pick up, and at an early stage. And yet for 13 years he was able to sail through appraisal every year, and perhaps 3 revalidation cycles. Could anything more illustrate the utter worthlessness of the process, and incompetence of the GMC. Every 5 years he was able to find the requisite number of colleagues to write a decent feedback despite his failings. Apart from anything else what the fuck were his anaesthetists doing about the butchery that was being performed on their patients. Far be it from me to suggest that these same anaesthetists were making a good living from Paterson's putting private patients their way.
To be fair, DZ has also known of colleagues who were cause for concern. But we all know the opprobrium that is heaped on the whistleblower, while the guilty escape.
Again. Appraisal and revalidation, is an experiment that has failed dismally.

DIY and blood.

Those of you of a certain age may remember a comedian called Kenny Everett. One of his comedic characters on his TV show was Reg Prescott,  a spoof TV  DIY handyman who, during the course of his show would invariably cause himself the most appalling injuries.

DZ never met Kenny Everett. But Reg could quite easily be based on DZ. If I embark on a DIY project it's only a matter of time before blood is drawn. Only recently I've sustained injuries with such mundane items as a car door, and a pan of potatoes. My history is such that one of my offspring has commented that I have "more lives than a cat". In addition to numerous cuts, blows, burns & scalds I have, in my life electrocuted myself a good half a dozen times, including once in the mouth. Tip. If using your teeth as a wire stripper take the fucking plug out of the socket!

The only thing that has allowed him to get to this stage of life with nineteen remaining digits is that most power tools today are designed and manufactured with all sorts of safety devices, such that even the most inept and clumsy can usually get away with it.

But lately my facebook account has been filled with adverts for a new generation of power tools, seemingly designed to put the user in A & E. Power assisted pruning shears for example that look horribly easy to take off a finger with. Or garden trimmers, where the reasonably safe nylon cord is replaced by six steel razors rotating at high speed, with no guard. Note the advert states "Can cut through anything!" I bet they can. And note also the nice soft footwear being worn by the users, sometimes with their feet perilously close to the blades.  And why anyone would want one of these is a mystery to me. I can't even imagine why it should be legal.

So as the spring and summer approach I predict that our A & E departments in Britain are going to start seeing an influx of injuries associated with these tools. People using the trimmer in the garden whilst wearing sandals on their feet. Others lopping off branches and getting distracted. 

DZ, hopefully will not be one of the injured. Mrs DZ has made it quite clear that he is forbidden from acquiring one of these items. I think she has a point.

God's will

The world, and the USA is not short of nasty, bigoted, raging apoplectics who label themselves as Christians. But a few of them are so vile that they stand head & shoulders above the rest. One such is this man.

Steven Anderson. To get some idea of just how thoroughly unpleasant this guy is just have a look here. So absolutely undesirable is he considered that he is now banned from entering 31countries, including every country in Europe.

And six months ago he was banned from entering Australia.

His response to this has been to claim that the recent bushfires in Australia are god’s punishment to them for not letting him in. Nothing new here. The evangelicals are not at all averse to claiming that any natural disaster anywhere is a manifestation of god’s displeasure with the people of that nation for some perceived failure to follow the bible.

I wonder what comment, if any, Mr Anderson has on the fact that rain has now started falling, putting out at least some of the fires. 

Sounds like divine intervention to me.

Election, 2

While we're on the subject.

DZ tries to keep party politics out of this blog. I think it's fair to say no-one could make an educated or logical guess at his voting intentions. And I'm not going to alter that. Nor would he dream of trying in any way to influence the way you might vote.

One thing I do believe strongly though is that YOU SHOULD VOTE!

People in the not so distant past have fought hard for the concept of universal suffrage, and some have died fighting.

If you don't vote you have no fucking right to whinge about the outcome.

Election

Once again DZ seems to give the impression of having gone into hibernation, but I’m still here. Maybe I’ll make a new year resolution to post more often. And maybe I won't.

It can not have escaped  anyone’s attention that we have a general election coming up in less than two weeks, and, if the current opinion polls are anything to go by we are likely to have a Conservative government, with a significant majority.

DZ is not going to say who he will vote for, except to say that his intentions are formed by very local issues. What he is about to post should not be taken as an endorsement or otherwise of any political party.

I’ve been very interested to read all the speculation about the future of the NHS. It’s claimed that the tories will sell it off completely to American companies, circling like vultures, waiting to feast on the massive financial potential it presents. I personally think that this is complete bullshit, for a couple of reasons.

a)      If there is anything that unites the British electorate it is that the NHS is something that should be preserved and nurtured above all else. We will all (including our politicians) almost without exception, need it at some time in our lives and we are all reassured that whatever care we will get will already have been paid for. None of us will get a bill after the end of our treatment. In the USA, more than half of all personal bankruptcies result from massive medical bills. In the UK that figure is zero.  Any politician who was responsible for the destruction of the NHS would be committing political suicide. If such a thing were to appear in a party manifesto that party would be destroyed in the election. If a government tried to introduce such a thing they would be opposed by many in their own party, and the house of lords. The suggestion that any party would be so stupid as to introduce a USA style healthcare system, undoubtedly the worst in the developed world, to the UK is ludicrous. There would be massive civil disobedience, rioting, possibly even a general strike. Those responsible would be figuratively, and quite possibly literally, lynched.

b)      Similarly untenable is the idea that a British government would follow such a course at the demand of the current President of the United States, a man so vile, so deranged, so grasping and so unsuitable for office that no sane Prime Minister would acquiesce to his demands. Unless the people of the USA exhibit an act of unbelievable mass insanity this man will no longer be in office a year from now. One can only hope that a far less predatory President will be available to negotiate a less one sided trade deal by then. There is no doubt that Trump doesn’t like our NHS. He doesn’t like it’s collective power to negotiate drug prices to a level far lower than found in the USA. He doesn’t like the social principles on which it operates. Most of all he hates the fact that it’s not available to make a profit from. He can be defied successfully, after all, his attempt to buy Greenland was firmly rebuffed. Boris may look a little like Trump and share one or two attitudes, but unlike Trump he at least has had a decent education and is not entirely stupid. And he’s not orange!

So I don’t think we really have to worry that the wild speculation about the future of the NHS is justified. It has many problems, and is, as ever short of money. But I don’t believe for a moment it’s going to be used as a bargaining counter to get a US/UK trade deal. And I think the current polls reflect that the electorate don’t believe it either.

GMC inconsistency.

When I made that little dig about the GMC in my last post I had no idea I was commenting on the tip of the iceberg. Researching that post I came across this article about the Hospital, North Devon, Where Dr Thomson worked. In the last couple of years two of their consultants have been convicted  of sexual offences. As I commented Dr Thomson does not appear to be of concern to the GMC, and neither do these two consultants.

In a previous post I commented on a GMC case in which a Consultant was pursued, and suspended for doing something that he had every right to do. The GMC fully admitted that the doctor in question was to be unlawfully deprived of his rights under the human rights act in order to be disciplined, as if they were perfectly entitled to do that. What he did was certainly not unlawful. And yet the same GMC doesn't seem to be inclined to pursue a paediatrician convicted of possessing child pornography.

Is it not reasonable to expect a little consistency? Competence? Propriety? Of course not. This is the GMC after all. 

Medical Directors

In the 40 plus years that DZ has worked in the NHS, he has met and interacted with a fair few Medical Directors. They were all individuals in their own right, but one thing they all had in common. They were, without exception, self serving, grasping, selfish, untrustworthy, overambitious egocentric cunts, with less than average abilities in the medical or managerial fields. I've no doubt there are some good ones out there, but I've never met one. I've commented on this blog about some of the worst, such as a prior MD in Pontefract, described by a court judge as a "self confessed liar". I see another one of the little shits has made the headlines.

Bearing in mind he has now left two separate MD positions after allegations of "intimidation and bullying" (Par for the course for MDs in my experience), and "unprofessional behaviour", one wonders why the GMC doesn't seem to be involved. Birds of a feather I suppose.