Re: Close all the golf courses.
And a surprising amount of that continuous training and learning is paid for by medical equipment suppliers and takes place at plush hotels with all expenses paid for.
Most of that continuous training is reading the Lancet (and ten other journals) and keeping fully up to date with developments in your speciality. This does not take place in plush hotels by "equipment suppliers" (very little equipment required for many disciplines, eg endocrinolog), it takes place in your dingy office that you share with 3 other consultants, or in your home office that you provide at your expense.
Much better would be to cut out a lot of the bullshit and move to a US style way of managing doctors. For example, in the UK a consultant anaesthetist will spend around a quarter to half of their hospital time in an ER, with the rest admin, where as in the US, the role of an anaesthetist attending is to be in surgery, and will spend 80 to 90% of their hospital time in surgery, and they have enough medical secretaries to do the admin.
The biggest objections to the swipe card access system at our local hospital came from the consultants because their actual arrival and departure times would become traceable. No other members of hospital staff expect a certain amount of flexibility in their working day to accommodate their private patients.
First off, most consultants don't have private patients - it tends to be cutters and gas men who do private work. Secondly, even consultants with private patients have contracted hours and set clinics/lists and having them turn up at 9 and go at 5 is not a good way of utilising their contracted hours. You turn up in time to get your paperwork done before running your clinic or surgical list, you leave once that is all done. Some serious clock punching envy here..
I'm from a medical family, my dad was a consultant, both my sisters are consultants, both their husbands are consultants and all their friends are either consultants, GPs or registrars. The amount of work required just to get that to point is unbelievable, and doesn't stop just because you reach the top step. 'technically "on call"', give me a break…