It is easily forgotten that qualifying into and practising in
a profession is something distinct from a mere job or career. Professionals
spend many years obtaining their unique qualifications, sacrificing potential short
term gain in doing so. Upon admission into their professional body they will be
expected to put others’ best interests first, even if those interests may conflict
with their own. A good lawyer will recommend acceptance of a sensible deal, and
deter pursuit of a futile claim, even if it means losing out on fees. A good doctor
will similarly resist the temptation to sign a malingerer off work, or to prescribe
unnecessary medicine or treatment when the solution is perfectly within the
patient’s capability and willpower, resisting the “anything for a quiet life”
mantra. And a good teacher will mark incorrect work wrong, and withhold a pass
grade from a fail paper, even if targets fall by the wayside and malcontents complain.
And after so many years of keeping to professional principles,
how far are they carried over and sensibly applied when an even higher calling
beckons? Well, for a lawyer seeking to become a judge, it ought not to be too
difficult – assess all the evidence and then decide, rather than simply advise
and act. And for a professor seeking to become a politician, there’s every
chance for logic, reason and academic freedom to find their practical use in
the running of a country, especially when combined with many years’ worth of
knowledge of the national education system and how, unknown to the average
non-specialist politician, it might be failing. (Yes, of course there’s also
every chance for new MPs to abandon their principles, go native and stick their
snouts in the trough, but there are many honourable exceptions…)
Which leads me to the medical profession. Consistent with
the “we must be seen to be doing something” doctrine that seems to be a key
principle of NHS administration, perhaps combined with “especially if it
enables the creation of more fake work and more highly paid managers’ roles”,
they have in recent years introduced “revalidation” for GPs. The supposed idea,
to make them demonstrate that they are up to date and fit to practice. Never
mind professional pride and common sense. Ignore existing workloads and
work-life balance. Take no notice of the fact that the existence of the
occasional bad apple will not mean that every GP must be tarred with the same
brush. Just assume Guilty Until Proven Innocent, and devise a time consuming
and burdensome system that leaves them having to demonstrate training course attendance
and to ask patients and colleagues for testimonials. Is this really the way to
treat professionals, and is it really likely to make any NHS stakeholder
(excuse the Blairism) feel any better about it? Hardly.
And how does quitting professions come in? No, it’s not simply
the wave of early retirements of competent but exasperated GPs in the face of
the ever increasing bureaucracy, which may one day sink in with the NHS top
brass as a practical illustration of the law of unintended consequences. It’s
the curious fact that the full time GP assessors evidently include former
practitioners who have chosen a career in regulation in place of one in medicine.
And who have adapted to their new role by communicating with their perfectly capable
and competent former colleagues about the jumping of hoops and the meeting of
deadlines in tones more suited to clipboard wielding local government
jobsworths rejoicing in their ability to tell small businesses all about their
powers to close them down.
There are clearly meritorious reasons to quit a profession.
But do they really include the pursuit of a career like this?
