Record numbers of British junior doctors this year are facing unemployment after a recent high court hearing where they now have to compete for jobs on equal terms with foreign medics. Last year an average of two junior doctors were chasing each individual available post in the NHS, this year it is more likely to be  three. this means that thousands of British medics are going to be forced to work abroad, without this further training they cannot become fully qualified.....so they cannot even become that most basic and sneered at of doctors, the humble GP.
 Last year the number of training posts in the UK was cut from 15,000 to 9,000 and now this new ruling means that the 16,000 international trainee doctors that would normally go home to complete their studies, are also now competing for these posts.  This makes a mockery of Gordon browns recent political party speech where he declared he wanted "British jobs for British workers", add into this the fact that three new medical schools have opened in the past decade and the number of domestically trained doctors is beginning to rise above and beyond the numbers that the NHS is able to cope with. So with the average junior doctor facing a 1in 19 chance of securing a post there is going to be a lost tribe of doctors who are admirably qualified but have failed to complete training.
 This is a situation that is close to my heart, I have worked in and  have been involved with he British NHS for the last 12 years and have recently returned to my local hospital, although not in the  nursing job I trained for nearly 4 years to do.... It costs the taxpayer £250,000 to train the average medical student up to the junior doctor level,  it costs the taxpayer the best part of £100,000 to train the average nurse up to qualification........what a waste of money, time and talent........
As a nurse You have to complete so many practise hours within a certain period of time to keep your qualification up to date, as i have been on extended maternity leave i have not been able to complete these practise hours.....so i need to do a return to practise course...there is no money available to be able to do this. (a return to practise course with theoretical component delivered by a university and unpaid practise in a local hospital costs around about £1000) this i would willingly pay fro myself, but there is no guarantee of a job at the end of it and it is more than likely that i would be nothing more than a £1000 out of pocket.
My local hospital unit merged with another hospital a few years ago and the year prior to merger was a unique, unanticipated blip year....the management accepted this as an accurate level of patient caseload, despite lots of advice to the contrary. Prior to the merger the average case load of the unit I worked in was 6000, the blip year caseload was just under 5000, consequently staffing levels for the new unit were worked out on a caseload of 5000. last years caseload was approaching 8000, this is severe under staffing.....and is beginning to have fatal consequences. There is no money to provide for additional staff and the unit cannot even place the numbers it has trained before considering people who have been out of the loop for a few years.
 The NHS is in a worse state than it has ever been, with so many protocols and so much paperwork that patient care is falling down to the lowest level and mistakes are happening, serious mistakes and i am seeing the consequences of these mistakes every day....Some of the people who work within it are dedicated and hardworking and do what they can to swim against the tide....and yet there are others who quite clearly do not have a clue.......can hardly speak the language......and are killing people ( however well meaning they may be) with incompetence.

As for me to do the job I was trained to do would mean moving my family half way around the world to Australia or new zealand.  So all together, Hooray for Mr brown!

Santa has been told to loose weight in a pre christmas diet shocker....the obese saint has been told he is setting a bad example to children...by 2050, 50% of brits, it is estimated will be obese. So blue water shopping centre has set up a santa boot camp, where the same loveable, jolly man will now be fitter and healthier, Santa- the lean, mean fighting machine!

Delivering presents all over the world on christmas night means santa shifts about 600 calories an hour ( that is the equivalent to me doing 3 hours on a treadmill or swimming for 2 hours....owwww)

although it seams that santa has a similar problem to the rest of us...its not the excersize....its the mince pies..If he ate every mince pie left by children he would gain an incredible 721,000 lbs. That makes the eyes water...not to mention the strain it puts on the knicker elastic!

A significant day approaches next week for templars worldwide, the 700th anniversary of the day over 4000 templars were arrested, tried and executed......Friday 13th 1307.
 As a child I was always under the impression that Friday the 13th was considered unlucky because of this very event.....yet it appears that only in the 20th century that the two terms have united. This day leaves some people so paralysed with fear that they will not even get out of bed.
It is thought that some $900 million is lost world wide with people refusing/ postponing carrying out business transactions and failing to do what they usually do.
 triskadekaphobia ( the fear of Friday the 13th) is more common in people who generally consider themselves to be unlucky and as fear raises anxiety levels, consequently making a person more prone to accidents, it is possible that these people are their own worst enemy, contributing to their own undoing......
 The fear of the number 13 is an old superstition that can be traced back to medieval times beginning with Norse mythology and Loki, the uninvited 13Th guest at dinner, which lead to the death of Balder and destruction.. Jesus Christ also had 13 guests at his own dinner, the last supper. In ancient Rome witches were supposed to gather in groups of 12 to facilitate the arrival of the 13th member, the devil.
 It is possible that 13 merely suffers from following on from 12....long thought of as a complete number....12 months, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 apostles...Many high rise buildings do not have a 13th floor, 80% of hospitals do not have a room or theatre 13 and in Italy any house in between 12-14 is numbered 12 1/2.
 
Friday has long been considered unlucky as it is traditionally the day eve tempted adam ( and we all know adam wanted to be tempted!), the day Cain was slain and the day jesus was cruicified.

Friday the 13th was also a very unlucky day for the last "English" king Harold who was shot in the eye at the battle of Hastings on Friday the 13th 1066.......
and we cannot forget the ill fated mission of Apollo 13.......

Folklore has some remedies should this fear become too much for you including climbing to the top of a mountain and burning all your holey socks...????!!!!! and standing on your head and eating a piece of gristle..although this is likely to lead to an unfortunate Friday the 13th type accident in my opinion. I wonder if napoleon tried it as he was a notable sufferer of triskadekaphobia as was mark Twain and Winston Churchill who always rescheduled plane flights on Friday 13th.

All in all, a most terrifying day, when you don't want to have a black cat cross your path, walk under a ladder or break a mirror.....or indeed get shot in the eye by an arrow.

I had this joke sent to me recently and as it raised a chuckle from me I thought i would share it with you.........by the way....if I ever found myself in this scenario, this is the kind of thing that would happen to me........along with hiring the worlds most ineffective hitman, siting on gum, getting bitten by the dog.....you get the picture.....

Three Italian nuns die and go to heaven. At the Pearly Gates, they are met by St. Peter. He says,
"Sisters,  you all led such exemplary lives that the Lord is granting you six months  to go back to earth and be anyone you wish to be.
The first nun says, "I want to be Sophia Loren;"
And *poof* she's gone.
The second says, "I want to be Madonna and *poof* she's gone.
The third says, "I want to be Sara Pipalini.."
St. Peter looks perplexed. "Who?" he asks
"Sara Pipalini;" replies the nun.
St. Peter shakes his head and says, "I'm sorry, but that name just doesn't ring a bell." The nun then takes a newspaper out of her habit and hands it to St.Peter. St. Peter reads the paper and starts laughing. He hands it back to  her and says.
"No sister, the paper says it was the ' Sahara Pipeline' that was  laid by 1,400 men in 6 months."

If you laugh, you are going straight to hell!

Does anybody have a cure for the common cold?......You would think with all the advances in science and medicine over recent years someone would have stumbled on something that fought that tricky little retrovirus that causes all that snot and mucus......
School is back in these parts after the holidays and my household is now suffering from its traditional september cold..since time immemorial, september has always seen me with a snotty  nose and now my offspring seems to be continuing the trend, as the most recent encounter is a gift from her and her classmates.
The "spud monster" with the indomitable spirit known to most 6 year olds doesn't let it get in her way...for that matter she doesn't let the use of a tissue get in her way either.......she can only be approached with all the caution given to radioactive materials and being prone to explosions of considerable velocity that have a mucus splatter radius of several miles, the appropriate protective clothing (plastic mask, acid proof gloves, overalls) should be worn at all times.
"him-indoors" is also suffering but appropriate to the more masculine members of society his humble cold has been elevated above the status of a mere virus to having all the aches, pains and agony of a serious bout of "Man Flu" and is lying on the sofa moaning, coughing and generally looking pathetic with a cold compress pressed to his forehead.....
I get the occasional little gentle moan with the request for a "nice cup of tea to ease my throat" and the TV remote control has become welded to his hand. We now watch "flick TV" with 15 seconds of each programme....the poor lamb....it must be hard........
 Some of us just have to carry on......with a dripping nose at the supermarket checkout......and that irritating sniff.

Did you know that the average adult gets up to 4 colds a year....while the average parent gets between 7-9 colds per year.....they don't tell you that when you are planning a baby....in addition to poo, baby sick, wee and spit up milk......just when you think it is safe to start breathing again and you can get your cashmere jumper out of mothballs you begin to drown in a sea of snot!

but you know what...I wouldn't have it any other way...(although a cure for "man flu" would be nice).

Templar is off on his travels again and is probably sipping cocktails on the island of maui as I write......with more tropical destinations to come........probably......and I don't even get a postcard!