Re: Named consultant for hospital patients will end culture of “brief encounters,” says England’s health secretary
Oh Jeremy. You are very very young. Otherwise you would have known that ever since hospitals began with consultants, the consultants were consulted - by the resident medical/ surgical officer. The RMO/ RSO might have been an SHO (senior house officer) or a middle grade registrar. Or, in some hospitals, a Junior Hospital Medical Officer. The JHMOs abounded in geriatric, psychiatric, chest, mental subnormality hospitals but also, sometimes, in acute specialities. They were there, for life, as it were. They did not mess around with post-grad exams, didn't hop from hospital yo hospital. They provided continuity of care.
In those days, the consultant's name Was at the head of the bed and at the foot of the bed.
In those days, the GPs would refer the patient to a Named Consultant, a consultant of HIS choice. I am talking about acute specialities. I suppose the Royal College presidents are too young to know all this. Otherwise they would have told you that the old wheel is still there in the farm yard. You just need to clean it. Maybe the modernisers of medical careers should have remembered that the JHMOs grade was slaughtered without good reason. Likewise, the SHMOs. They were as good as the consultants and they were there when the consultant was not available.
Now to the nurses. And named nurses. Some years ago I was in hospital for a two day sojourn. A Named Nurse interviewed me for about an hour. She was charming. As she was leaving, I thanked her and said I hoped to see her again. Oh no, she said, I am off to ski as part of RAF training exercise.
Close down all BSc Nursing courses. Bring back "nurse cadets", the PTS (preliminary training schools), from age fifteen. Two years later send them to the wards, year 1, then 2, then 3. Get the registrars to teach them. At the end of three years, examine them and make them SRNs. Staff nurses.
Nursing 2000, Graduate nurses. Do they ever know what and how much the patient on the ward has eaten? Have they learnt how you look for DVT? Do they know how to pass a catheter? To make a bed?
Now I shall have a sip of cold water. A chota peg would be better but I am reluctant to burn my insides.
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Re: Named consultant for hospital patients will end culture of “brief encounters,” says England’s health secretary
Oh Jeremy. You are very very young. Otherwise you would have known that ever since hospitals began with consultants, the consultants were consulted - by the resident medical/ surgical officer. The RMO/ RSO might have been an SHO (senior house officer) or a middle grade registrar. Or, in some hospitals, a Junior Hospital Medical Officer. The JHMOs abounded in geriatric, psychiatric, chest, mental subnormality hospitals but also, sometimes, in acute specialities. They were there, for life, as it were. They did not mess around with post-grad exams, didn't hop from hospital yo hospital. They provided continuity of care.
In those days, the consultant's name Was at the head of the bed and at the foot of the bed.
In those days, the GPs would refer the patient to a Named Consultant, a consultant of HIS choice. I am talking about acute specialities. I suppose the Royal College presidents are too young to know all this. Otherwise they would have told you that the old wheel is still there in the farm yard. You just need to clean it. Maybe the modernisers of medical careers should have remembered that the JHMOs grade was slaughtered without good reason. Likewise, the SHMOs. They were as good as the consultants and they were there when the consultant was not available.
Now to the nurses. And named nurses. Some years ago I was in hospital for a two day sojourn. A Named Nurse interviewed me for about an hour. She was charming. As she was leaving, I thanked her and said I hoped to see her again. Oh no, she said, I am off to ski as part of RAF training exercise.
Close down all BSc Nursing courses. Bring back "nurse cadets", the PTS (preliminary training schools), from age fifteen. Two years later send them to the wards, year 1, then 2, then 3. Get the registrars to teach them. At the end of three years, examine them and make them SRNs. Staff nurses.
Nursing 2000, Graduate nurses. Do they ever know what and how much the patient on the ward has eaten? Have they learnt how you look for DVT? Do they know how to pass a catheter? To make a bed?
Now I shall have a sip of cold water. A chota peg would be better but I am reluctant to burn my insides.
Competing interests: Memories of a bygone age