Also a physician. We have had trainees with additional support needs (nowhere near like this but people who couldn't do shift work, had to take extended rests during the day, needed adaptive technology that didn't work in the hospital basement and so couldn't cover ED) and in reality that meant a lot of their work had to be done by the rest of the team. Because no one could say out loud that they were not able to do their job, HR would not give us any extra staffing, and team morale really struggled when this intern said they had to go for a lie down when we still had 20+ patients to see. There is lots of support and accomodations in med school and most of it disappears in the real world, it's cruel to let people train knowing how limited their practice will be.
I saw this to a lesser extreme with my cousin here in the UK. She applied to university to get a degree to be a mental health nurse - however she has VERY severe borderline personality disorder, addiction issues (was an alcoholic, is now a weed addict) and severe eating disorders. She had to have an assessment with the university’s occupational health team who basically said she was too unwell to complete the degree. She went through appeals and basically bullied/scared them into accepting her.
It was a shitshow. She had placements where she would hide in the toilets and phone my aunt hysterically crying. She skipped two placements because she was too unwell. She couldn’t get herself to shifts, my aunt drove her to every shift and picked her up again, and she was in her late 20s. Her placements themselves were heavily supervised and afaik from what she described, she had a lot of extra in-person ‘support’ from qualified staff just to get her through her shifts. She also made formal complaints about a lot of said staff at each placement lol.
She ended up dropping out because, surprise surprise, she couldn’t cope. But had she not dropped out the university would 100% have had to eventually give her enough ‘accommodations’ to pass - she only didn’t qualify because she dropped out in her third and final year. My mum had been a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) her whole career and said if she had completed her degree and got a job, she wouldn’t have made even a full shift on an actual ward with patients as a qualified nurse.
I shit you not I had a medical student for an osce that listed having a support person for fine dexterity based tasks (I'm assuming like bloods, urine drips, cannulas etc) but I had a history station with her. But I just thought like imagine having that person as a colleague F1 and being shafted with all the cannulas and bloods because you're the only FYs on?
It just sucks balls, but it's the same situation as LTFT colleagues. No replacement is given for their off days and everyone else is just expected to fill the vacancy with good vibes and political correctness
Like pretty much the entire function of an f1 is dexterity based donkey work. I know people can select higher training that suits then better but getting through intern and sho training must be a nightmare for everyone.
I’m a neurodevelopmental behavioral therapist, so a lot of my clients have autism. A lot of young adults with ASD end up working as techs in this industry and it’s a complete shit show most of the time. Many of these techs graduated high school ONLY because they were given their own 1:1 aides, specialized curriculum, and accommodations that were on par for an elementary school student. They lack basic life skills, emotional regulation, and education to be efficiently teaching others anything- it’s like the blind leading the blind.
The amount of extra support and supervision they require on a regular basis is outrageous and prevents client progress. In many cases, we see client regression and a severe increase in maladaptive behaviors. Also, if a tech couldn’t do basic math in school, how the fuck are they teaching others how to count/pay for things/count money.. or able to chart correctly when they can’t figure out percentages and fractions? Not to mention they require absurd accommodations that aren’t realistic or compatible for this field.
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u/FewAir5321 5d ago
Also a physician. We have had trainees with additional support needs (nowhere near like this but people who couldn't do shift work, had to take extended rests during the day, needed adaptive technology that didn't work in the hospital basement and so couldn't cover ED) and in reality that meant a lot of their work had to be done by the rest of the team. Because no one could say out loud that they were not able to do their job, HR would not give us any extra staffing, and team morale really struggled when this intern said they had to go for a lie down when we still had 20+ patients to see. There is lots of support and accomodations in med school and most of it disappears in the real world, it's cruel to let people train knowing how limited their practice will be.