Moving on to bigger (and scarier) things

I have five days left in my current job. I have accepted a three-month Oncology registrar job at a London teaching hospital, and I am excited, scared and sad about it.

Excited - finally having a taste of what I want to do, at a level of seniority which I have not yet experienced.

Scared - oh my God, I'm going to be a registrar. The person I'm replacing is leaving to become a Consultant. I'm going to rock up, 26 years of age with a face that still gets me ID'd at clubs and off-licences, and say 'Hello, I'm the replacement! My, that's a shiny radiotherapy machine...'. Gulp.

Sad - I have worked at my friendly little District General Hospital for nearly two years. It is the place where I really cut my teeth as a doctor, where I learned much of what I know about the practicalities of hospital medicine, and where I have a bunch of great friends. I know all the nurses, physios, OTs and porters by name, as well as a number of patients who are 'frequent flyers'. I feel like I've grown up here, if that makes any sense.

The job is not part of Mangling Medical Careers - it is temporary, a stop-gap. I assume it will be filled by a shiny new 'ST3' person at the end of August. I have my one guaranteed MMC interview on Tuesday, also in London. Yet another ridiculous consequence of the new system is that, because I applied to MTAS prior to taking my final MRCP exam, I had to apply at ST2, ie SHO level. The fact that I now have MRCP, and am indeed about to start working as a registrar, doesn't matter. I can't change what level I have applied to, so if I get the MTAS job, I will effectively be resigning my registrar job a month early in order to take up a medical SHO job for another year. Resigning my registrar job to go back to doing what I have already been doing for two years.

How fucking stupid is that?! Every single doctor who passed PACES at the same time as I did will be in the same position - forced to remain at SHO grade for an extra year. And 'they' said MTAS would help to 'streamline' training, ensuring that nobody spent too long stuck at the same level. Priceless.

Surely it is some kind of enfringement of employment law, only being able to apply to four jobs per year? Surely everyone should be able to apply for as many jobs as they like, as many times a year as they want to, at the most appropriate level of seniority? There are so many stupid, probably illegal, foolish fuckwittish elements to the whole system, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Why the haemorrhaging fuck is it still going ahead??!!

I started this post intending to describe my feelings about changing jobs, but I have ended up on MTAS, again. Ho hum.