Flavour of the month

There is no escaping the impression that the implications of CET have not been adequately considered. For example, it is possible that some may be deterred from taking up a calling demanding a lifetime subjection to training and retraining (and examinations?). It is equally feasible that some practitioners in their mid-50s and over are liable to resent enforced retraining for the job they have been doing for decades without complaint - and, understandably, decide to call it a day. Revalidation, however designated, being the flavour of the month, is not, of course, a purely optical phenomenon. As a recent leading article in the medical journal Doctor observed with refreshing candour, it is highly questionable whether many doctors are equipped to render any sort of definition of 'revalidation' to their colleagues. Astonishingly (in the circumstances very much le mot juste) there was evidence that not everyone involved in taking the vital decision in favour of revalidation (at General Medical Council level) understood its full implications. Incredible though it may seem, GMC president Sir Donald Irvine had to explain 'in painstaking detail' just what members were voting for. In the leader writer's view, 'The lack of knowledge in the profession at large, fuelled in part by scant information from the centre, threatens to sideline grassroots doctors from vital decisions. The profession simply cannot afford for the detail of this hugely significant change to be driven by a small number of doctors at the heart of the GMC, the British Medical Association and the colleges.' Nor, mutatis mutandis, can the ophthalmic optical profession.