|
Postgraduate Medical Education in UK
GME
in Pakistan GME in
THE UK GME in THE
USA
THE NHS.
THE GPS AND THE SPECIALISTS.
BASIC AND HIGHER SPECIALIST TRAINING..
THE NHS
The National Health Service,
or NHS is responsible for providing healthcare to the residents of the UK and
training the doctors who work for it. The NHS is organized to maximize the
efficiency of health-care delivery. Its structure is somewhat different from the
structure of health care in
Pakistan
or the US.
THE GPS AND THE SPECIALISTS
If you are living in the UK
and you get sick, you will go to what is called the General Practitioner,
or GP. Every citizen in the UK is entitled to be registered with the GP
near his locality. He will be your personal doctor, and whenever you fall ill,
you will go to him first. He may diagnose your illness and treat you, or if he
feels that your illness requires the expertise of a Specialist, he will
refer you to one. The advantage of this system is that when the patient first
interacts with his healthcare system, he is managed in a way that maximizes the
efficiency of health-care delivery. If the ailment is simple and within the
ability of the GP to treat, there will no further need to burden the NHS with
the case. Furthermore, after seeing the patient, the GP will, if nothing else,
be able to refer the patient to the Specialist that can best treat him. In
countries where this system is lacking, the fragmentation of medicine and
surgery into so many specialties can make it difficult for the patient to decide
which department he should go to seek a cure. The patient for example, may go to
a pulmonologist for his breathlessness while his actual problem is cardiac. At
best, such inappropriate visits can simply cause an added burden on the
healthcare system and at worst, can cause an incorrect diagnosis.
The reason this distinction
is important for our purposes is that overseas doctors who train and work as GPs
in the UK
may find it difficult to return and practice in their home countries where the
healthcare system is not organized to have a well-defined role for such doctors.
This consideration must be made before any overseas doctor decides firmly that
he wishes to pursue a career as a GP because in the UK, a GP’s skills and
professional development is influenced by a network of Specialists he can call
on whenever he feels the need.
BASIC AND HIGHER SPECIALIST TRAINING
To train to become a
specialist, the doctor must pass through two stages of training. The first stage
is called General Professional Training which will probably be known in
the future as the Basic Specialist Training. This training is imparted
during the time spent as an Senior House Officer (which is explained below).
The second stage is called
Higher Specialist Training – which lasts during the time spent as a
Specialist Registrar (SpR) (which is explained below).
| 
