Malta has announced that they will adopt the system run by the United Kingdom Foundation Programme Office for providing newly graduated doctors with . Dr Joe Cassar, the Parliamentary Undersecretary for Health in Malta, has described UKFPO as the “gold standard for medical training in Europe.” In the UK, RemedyUK persuaded 1600 doctors to write to the General Medical Council asking for the architects of Modernising Medical Careers to be brought to account. Problems encountered included applicants personal information including sexual orientation being made available unpassword-protected online.
There are reasons for UKFPO being keen to adopt Malta beyond aiming to provide a fair and transparent process for junior doctors. It is illegal under European law to discriminate against people applying for jobs based on their national origin. So a graduate from a UK medical school applying to UKFPO for their first two years work is on equal footing with a graduate from a medical school anywhere else in the European Economic Area, which includes Malta. The legal guarantee for graduates from UK medical schools to have jobs at the end of their five or six (or more) years of study was removed by the Medical Act 2006. There are many more Europeans speaking English than English people speaking European languages, and the UK is one of the more attractive places to live; there is a great asymmetry in applications to and from the continent. It is currently possible for applicants from other European countries to apply, not gain the job they want, be allocated another job, then withdraw from the process. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Maltese students were among the most common doing this. And why not? They were working to do well career-wise.
It is not yet clear whether students in Malta will be more tempted to remain in their place of graduation. RemedyUK is currently raising money to take their legal fight to the high court. Best of luck in Malta!
- Dom
