Continuing to revamp the MCFD

Abstract

Firstly I would like to congratulate Dr Philip Sciortino, vice-President of the College, who is now presidentelect. This means that after my term as President come to an end at the end of 2018, he will take over as the new President of the College. The term of one year for president-elect is meant for the person to take over and understand what is going on in the college. Of course it is a safeguard against someone coming in new from outside council and therefore needing a lot of time to come to terms with current issues (as had happened to me and hence the reason why I introduced it during one of our AGMs). Philip of course has no need for an update but there are issues which we will be discussing. Congratulations Philip. I feel it is important that any president has a vision and I believe in management by objectives so as not to allow the many other items which arise deviate one from the goals on which one may have been elected. May I be allowed some nostalgia and some space for the benefit of members as well to overview many of the things we have done together during my two terms. When I was elected the first time in 2003 my vision was to establish a robust system for vocational training and to bring it to the level of international standards and indeed have external review. As has been amply written before the best path, given our culture of specialisation at the time in the UK, was the Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners. We now have over fifty members who have MRCGP(INT), which they can get following the exam after vocational training and upon becoming members of the college. So I will list some of the things we have achieved together