Have you ever had a House Officer that was so terrible that you are in a dilemma? The said person is not good enough to be released and releasing him would be unfair to the next department and the public at large. However if you don't release said person but extend the person in your department it will rile up all the senior people, create havoc in the rostering and basically slow down the whole department. Since medical gets 80% of the first-posters, you can't really expect medical to keep and train all the weak ones. What should you do then? Either action is destructive. I believe we should be given a third option which I will call the probational release.
With probational release, instead of immediately serving the extension the House Officer is given an opportunity to go to other departments to pick up more skills and experience before coming back to medical to serve his extension. Thus the other departments share in the training of weaker ones.
For the House Officer they are given the opportunity to pass with their friends thus avoiding stigmatisation, they are also given release from the current batch of senior doctors so that by the time they return they are less likely to be with senior people who are victimising them (if that be the case) and thus with additional skills and experience, they will be able to give a better impression to a different batch of senior doctors.
For the senior doctors in medical this will be a breather and given time we will have forgiven and forgotten the crazy things that got the House Officer extended in the first place thus making it easier to give said person a chance to prove his or herself. And of course all the other departments will have an opportunity to have input into this person's training. Looks like a win-win-win situation for me.
sounds like an excellent idea!
ReplyDeleteArisa