EBME Forums Forums Management Professional Issues VRCT registration eligibility

No Jim, I hope I would never presume to say you are incorrect about anything. Apart from your insistence on using the phrase "Clinical Technologist", that is.

Instead I admire the fact that you're still apparently so "full of beans" after all these years.

But "agree to disagree"? For sure. I can honestly say that I wouldn't want to be forty (or even twenty) years younger. Not with the way things are with the world today.

But sticking with our own Little World, I was lucky enough to be around when biomedical engineering was about supporting the medics and repairing equipment.

So I'm content these days to remain "out of kilter", whilst wishing all the Fertile Young Minds nothing but kudos and success. The future lies with them, after all. But somehow I doubt that many will be rewarded with the sense of satisfaction that most of my (then) contemporaries and myself were occasionally blessed.

I would hate to be around when you cannot get a job, promotion etc because you don't have the correct paperwork or you do not belong to the right club. As with Geoff I have been offered roles and took on responsibilities through experience that given the current climate of documentation would never have been offered. Currently I am writing all the specifications for a cardiac centre, finished the outpatients building, completed all the standards for medical equipment as part of CBAHI, next up is a renal centre. All on City & Guilds and a lot of experience. I doubt that I would have been offered these roles in the West unless I had gone further in school! Give me experience over paperwork any day of the week and anyone that is willing to roll up their sleeves and get dirty, you can use the paper work to wipe the dirt off.

You're right of course, Neil ... but the fact remains that blokes like us are truly "Yesterday's Men". We just don't belong in the Brave New World.

Five or six years ago I was advised by a guy in (what was) my old office in Riyadh that even the MOH is insisting these days on an MSc (for the type of jobs that I managed very well for years with "next to FA").

And (as you can see on this forum), similar forces are at work here in the UK. The Bar is being (or rather, has been) raised. But for the life of me, I can't see the real benefit in it.

I can only assume that it's all just "politics"; like when all the perfectly good Technical Colleges in the UK were magically turned into "Universities". The only positive outcome I can think of there is perhaps when Prime Ministers can spout about "over half of our young people are graduates", when they're pontificating at one of the many overseas junkets they seem to enjoy attending at our expense. Yeah, right. But graduates in what? (OK, don't ask).

Even blokes from the REME come out with MSc's these days, I notice. Fair Play to them. But "how come", I wonder? Are they any better than we were?

It's the New World Order, Neil. Control. And conditioning. Keeping the plebs happy (and in their place). That, and the Dumbing Down of the Masses! Innovators, original thinkers and Old Sweats (and vocational, practical, useful folk) need not apply. Especially those who have the temerity to carry out the work of Graduates!

Certification is fine, I'd just rather not have to spend my hard earned cash on an annual fee. Or spend time justifying my job by doing 'CPD' just so I can remain registered. Especially when said time could actually be used to DO my job.

If the system worked (which it currently doesn't), our yearly appraisals would be enough to show that we are doing our jobs effectively, and therefore can continue to do them for the next year. But hold on, isn't that how we were doing it in the first place?

Personally, I see the VRCT as a waste of time and money, and I've never met an engineer who didn't agree.

Brave New World, New World Order, Yesterdays men, dumbing down of the masses - it all sounds a bit doom and gloom to me.

It seems to me that there appears to be some hypothetical scenario whereby people believe that there are the people with degrees and MSc's, and then there are the guys and girls (techies) that have the experience and do the work.

Has anybody stopped to consider that there is another group. Those that started at the bottom of the pile, worked themselves up, gaining experience and qualifications along the way and ended up with degrees or MSc.

Qualifications and certifications are fine, whichever way you look at it. Pointless fighting against it - that's the way it is. If you disagree, it certainly doesn't make you one of yesterday's men.

I think the powers that be need to be careful that we dont end up with the guys in the none degree being thought of as some sort of 2nd class citizen. When in fact its far from it.
The other issue being that most dont / didnt have the option to go and do a degree. Whether it be funding related or because their lives dont have the time to do one or whatever.
The other problem is that there are guys out there who do have a degree but dont fit into a small group that is "recognised".

OK guys ... we're getting a bit away from the original post, but still on the well-aired topic of "VRCT" nevertheless.

But instead of constant "discussion" of the type we're so familiar with, how about another angle? Especially as, with talk of "grand-fathering" and all the rest ("my qualification [experience, CV et al] is better than yours"), we seem to be harping on about the past, rather than laying plans for the future.

If Certification is going to happen regardless (one day, eventually) ... why doesn't someone sit down and do it right (now, there's an idea)!

So, setting aside all the "historical baggage", preconceptions (misconceptions), arguments over EBME versus Medical Physics (the revenge of the nerds), this degree or that ... and anything else which gets in the way ... why not look at what it is the biomed of the future will actually need to be able to do, and what skills will be needed to do the job. And then take steps to have suitable training in place. And then (maybe) start thinking about adding names to a List.

That is, first things first, and proceeding in an orderly fashion.

But before all that, we may need to start by agreeing what it is the *Biomed Community is supposed to be doing now.

Let's aim to have it all ready for the year 2015.

* I just can't bring myself to use nonsense terms like "Clinical Technologist".

Quick some one take a screen shot
Geoffs caved
Now wait for the But

Ha, ha.

But (<-there it is), caved? ... in what way?

I was talking about the so-called "Fresh Audience" there, the Biomeds of the Future, the Fertile Young Minds ... not "Yesterday's Men" (and other choice phrases of the type I've had to suffer - on here, mostly - over recent years)!

Caved in
You are happy for a group that you have no control over joining or not, are able to say you know what you are doing and be able to stop you from carrying out a role if they think you are not, because thats never come across in your previous posts.

The fundamental reason behind registration (Your first step)

or is the "but"
The hoops are not for the likes of the old guys Just for the new blood.
which could look like
The old dogs are too old to learn / need new tricks, or just to good and know all the tricks already.