Dr No - nail on head? Can of worms exploding

I stumbled upon this excellent piece by Dr No on the proposals for extra years of training for GPs, I have to agree with Dr No, I do not trust the Royal College of GPs and suspect some cynical motives may be at play:

"There are of course those who see the extension of training as a cynical ploy by the general practice establishment to extend the pool of sub-GPs (and so cheap GPs) available for exploitation by the establishment. While this may indeed happen as an unwelcome side-effect, Dr No suspects the primary motive of those who wish to extend GP training is to enhance professional standing and status, and so distance the profession from its trade roots; and in this objective, Dr No believes the College proposals will fail."

I am not sure Dr No is right on this, however in the comments it is abundantly clear that there are major problems with medical training that continue to be ignored by the powers that be.

Medical training has been taken over by educationalists in Ivory towers, many of whom reside at the GMC, the focus is now barmy, it is all about paperwork and reflective practise.

There is no decent regulation of training.  There is no focus on hours and experience.  It is a joke.

The problem is that this situation is getting worse, there is a huge disconnect between those involved in training on the ground and those in the Ivory towers who are telling them what to do.  A key part of John Tooke's review talked about this disconnect and the lack of involvement of those on the ground in running training.

The GMC is not democratic, the Royal Colleges are not democratic, the BMA is not democratic, and all this combines to result in the continued disastrous reform of training.  It is nothing but a shambles.